THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Mrs,   Helen  A,  Dillon 


Ls  to  that,  said  Mi-.Cradock,  we  iriay^ 
'say  that  all  ages  arc  dangerous  to  all  people 
in  this  dangerous  life  we  live." 


To  QUOTE  the  London  Times:  "In  'Dangerous  Ages'  Miss  Mac- 
aulay  has  woven  a  delightful  story.  There  are  scenes  in  this  book, 
enacted  within  a  human  soul,  so  terribly  p>oignant  that  in  witness- 
ing them  one  has  almost  a  sense  of  personal  intrusion.  When  Neville 
Hilary  at  forty-three,  tired  of  being  merely  wife  and  mother,  tries  to 
work  for  examinations  which  she  abandoned  twenty  years  before, 
when  Mrs.  Hilary,  jealous  of  Neville's  friendship  for  grandmamma, 
shrinks  appalled  from  the  ennui  of  an  afternoon  with  nobody  to  talk 
to,  when  Nan  (Neville's  younger  sister),  faces  with  desperate  bravado 
the  theft  by  Gerda  of  Barry's  heart,  and  when  Gerda  (Nan's  young 
niece),  like  a  martyr  for  faith,  steels  herself,  in  honor  of  her  love,  to 
answer  every  challenge  of  Nan's  to  physical  courage.  Miss  Macaulay, 
for  all  her  stern  repression  of  tears,  which  she  reserves  for  beauty 
rather  than  for  pain,  rises  to  a  level  which  only  her  own  deliberate 
effort  keeps  from  being  undiluted  tragedy." 

As  Mr.  Cradock,  the  psychoanalyst,  says  to  Mrs.  Hilary:  "All 
ages  are  dangerous  to  all  people  in  this  dangerous  life  we  live,"  and 
as  we  read  Miss  Macaulay 's  novel,  we  live  through  each  of  these 
dangerous  ages  in  turn,  not  only  because  the  characters  are  so  con- 
vincing an-^  pulsing,  but  because,  all  taken  together,  they  make  the 
sum — WOMAN.  And  as  if  to  symbolize  the  great  involuntary  strug- 
gle for  adjustment.  Rose  Macaulay  gives  us  one  of  the  most  breath- 
taking episodes  in  modern  fiction,  one  that  almost  ends  in  smash; 
a  smash,  however,  from  which  emerges  happiness  for  the  woman  who 
sees  how  to  steer  her  course  to  a  true  goal  along  the  route  of  the 
Tiinimum  danger. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/dangerousagesOOmacaiala 


DANGEROUS 
AGES 


by 

ROSE  MACAULAY 

Author  of  "Potterism" 


BONI    andLIVERIGHT 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


Copyright,  1921,  By 

BONI   &   LiVERICHT,   InC= 


All  rights  reserved 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CoKcge 
Library 

!    . 


TO  MY  MOTHER 
DRIVING  GAILY  THROUGH  THE 
ADVENTUROUS    MIDDLE   YEARS 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  ^*°^ 

I.    NEVILLE'S  BIRTHDAY  " 

n.    MRS.  HILARY'S  BIRTHDAY  29 

HI.    FAMILY  LIFE  54 

TV.    ROOTS  75 

V.    SEAWEED  84 

VI.    JIM  104 

VII.     GERDA  "7 

VIII.    NAN  134 

IX.    THE  PACE  145 

X.    PRINCIPLES  169 

XI.    THAT  WHICH  REMAINS  184 

XII.    THE  MOTHER  i95 

XIII.  THE  DAUGHTER  213 

XIV.  YOUTH  TO  YOUTH  229 
X\'.    THE  DREAM  233 

XVI.    TIME  236 

XVII.    THE  KEY  241 


'As  to  that,'  said  Mr  Cradock,  'we  may  say  that  all 
ages  are  dangerous  to  all  people,  in  this  dangerous  life 
we  live.' 


'Reflecting  how,  at  the  best,  human  life  on  this 
minute  and  perishing  planet  is  a  mere  episode,  and 
as  brief  as  a  dream.  .  .  .' 

Trivia:    Logan  Pearsall  Smith. 


CHAPTER  I 

Neville's  birthday 


Neville,  at  five  o'clock  (Nature's  time,  not  man's)  on 
the  morning  of  her  birthday,  woke  from  the  dream- 
broken  sleep  of  summer  dawns,  hot  with  the  burden  of 
two  sheets  and  a  blanket,  roused  by  the  multitudinous 
silver  calling  of  a  world  full  of  birds.  They  chattered 
and  bickered  about  the  creepered  house,  shrill  and 
sweet,  like  a  hundred  brooks  running  together  down 
steep  rocky  places  after  snow.  And,  not  like  brooks, 
and  strangely  unlike  birds,  like,  in  fact,  nothing  in  the 
world  except  a  cuckoo  clock,  a  cuckoo  shouted  fool- 
ishly in  the  lowest  boughs  of  the  great  elm  across  the 
silver  lawn. 

Neville  turned  on  her  face,  cupped  her  small,  pale, 
tanned  face  in  her  sunburnt  hands,  and  looked  out  with 
sleepy  violet  eyes.    The  sharp  joy  of  the  young  day 
struck  into  her  as  she  breathed  it  through  the  wide 
window.     She  shivered  ecstatically  as  it  blew  coldly 
onto  her  bare  throat  and  chest,  and  forgot  the  restless 
birthda}^  bitterness  of  the  night;   forgot  how  she  had 
lain  and  thought  ''Another  }/ear  gone,  and  nothing  done  \ 
3^et.    Soon  all  the  years  will  be  gone,  and  nothing  ever 
will  be  done."    Done  by  her,  she,  of  course,  meant,  as    ) 
all  who  are  familiar  with  birthdays  will  know.     But    ' 
what  was  something  and  Vv^hat  was  nothing,  neither  she 


12  DANGEROUS  AGES 

nor  others  with  birthdays  could  satisfactorily  define.} 
They  have  lived,  they  have  eaten,  drunk,  loved,  bathed,  ^ 
suffered,  talked,  danced  in  the  night  and  rejoiced  in 
the  dawn,  warmed,  in  fact,  both  hands  before  the  fire 
of  life,  but  still  they  are  not  ready  to  depart.  For  they 
are  behindhand  with  time,  obsessed  with  so  many 
worlds,  so  much  to  do,  the  petty  done,  the  undone  vast. 
It  depressed  Milton  when  he  turned  twenty-three;  it 
depresses  all  those  with  vain  and  ambitious  tempera- 
ments at  least  once  a  year.  Some  call  it  remorse  for 
wasted  days,  and  are  proud  of  it;  others  call  it  vanity, 
discontent  or  greed,  and  are  ashamed  of  it.  It  makes 
no  difference  either  way. 

Neville,  flinging  it  off  lightly  with  her  bedclothes, 
sprang  out  of  bed,  thrust  her  brown  feet  into  sand 
shoes,  her  slight,  straight,  pyjama-clad  body  into  a  big 
coat,  quietly  slipped  into  the  passage,  where,  behind 
three  shut  doors,  slept  Rodney,  Gerda  and  Kay,  and 
stole  down  the  back  stairs  to  the  kitchen,  which  was 
dim  and  blinded,  blue  with  china  and  pale  with  dawn, 
and  had  a  gas  stove.  She  made  herself  some  tea.  She 
also  got  some  bread  and  marmalade  out  of  the  larder, 
spread  two  thick  chunks,  and  munching  one  of  them, 
slipped  out  of  the  sleeping  house  into  the  dissipated 
and  riotous  garden. 

Looking  up  at  the  honeysuckle-buried  window  of  the 
bedroom  of  Gerda,  Neville  nearly  whistled  the  call  to 
which  Gerda  was  wont  to  reply.  Nearly,  but  not  quite. 
On  the  whole  it  v/as  a  morning  to  be  out  alone  in.  Be- 
sides, Neville  wanted  to  forget,  for  the  moment,  about 
birthdays,  and  Gerda  would  have  reminded  her. 

Going  round  by  the  yard,  she  fetched  Esau  instead, 
who  wouldn't  remind  her,  and  whose  hysterical  joy 
she  hushed  with  a  warning  hand. 

Across  the  wet  and  silver  lawn  she  sauntered,  be- 


NEVILLE'S  BIRTHDAY  13 

tween  the  monstrous  shadows  of  the  elms,  her  feet  in 
the  old  sand  shoes  leaving  dark  prints  in  the  dew,  her 
mouth  full  of  bread  and  marmalade,  her  black  plait 
bobbing  on  her  shoulders,  and  Esau  tumbling  round 
her.  Across  the  lawn  to  the  wood,  cool  and  dim  still, 
but  not  quiet,  for  it  rang  with  music  and  rustled  with 
hfe.  Through  the  boughs  of  beeches  and  elms  and 
firs  the  young  day  flickered  gold,  so  that  the  bluebell 
patches  were  half  lit,  like  blue  water  in  the  sun,  half 
grey,  like  water  at  twihght.  Between  two  great  waves 
of  them  a  brown  path  ran  steeply  down  to  a  deep  little 
stream.  Neville  and  Esau,  scrambling  a  little  way  up- 
stream, stopped  at  a  broad  swirling  pool  it  made  be- 
tween rocks.  Here  Neville  removed  coat,  shoes  and 
pyjamas  and  sat  poised  for  a  moment  on  the  jutting 
rock,  a  slight  and  naked  body,  long  in  the  leg,  finely 
and  supplely  knit,  with  light,  flexible  muscles — a  body 
built  for  swiftness,  grace  and  a  certain  wiry  strength. 
She  sat  there  while  she  twisted  her  black  plait  round 
her  head,  then  she  slipped  into  the  cold,  clear,  swirling 
pool,  which  in  one  part  was  just  over  her  depth,  and 
called  to  Esau  to  come  in  too,  and  Esau,  as  usual,  didn't, 
but  only  barked. 

One  swim  round  is  enough,  if  not  too  much,  as 
everyone  who  knows  sunrise  bathing  will  agree.  Neville 
scrambled  out,  discovered  that  she  had  forgotten  the 
towel,  dried  herself  on  her  coat,  resumed  her  pyjamas, 
and  sat  down  to  eat  her  second  slice  of  bread  and 
marmalade.  When  she  had  finished  it  she  climbed  a 
beech  tree,  swarming  neatly  up  the  smooth  trunk  in 
order  to  get  into  the  sunshine,  and  sat  on  a  broad 
branch  astride,  whistling  shrilly,  trying  to  catch  the 
tune  now  from  one  bird,  now  from  another. 

These,  of  course,  were  the  m.cmcnts  when  being  alive 
was  enough.    Swimming,  bread  and  marmalade,  sitting 


14  DANGEROUS  AGES 

high  in  a  beech  tree  in  the  golden  eye  of  the  morning 
sun — that  was  life.  One  flew  then,  like  a  gay  ship 
with  the  wind  in  its  sails,  over  the  cold  black  bottom- 
less waters  of  misgiving.  Many  such  a  June  morning 
Neville  remembered  in  the  past.  .  .  .  She  wondered 
if  Gerda  and  if  Kay  thus  sailed  over  sorrow,  too.  Rod- 
ney, she  knew,  did.  But  she  knew  Rodney  better,  in 
some  ways,  than  she  knew  Gerda  and  Kay. 

To  think  suddenly  of  Rodney,  of  Gerda  and  of  Kay, 
sleeping  in  the  still  house  beyond  the  singing  wood  and 
silver  garden,  was  to  founder  swiftly  in  the  cold,  dark 
seas,  to  be  hurt  again  with  the  stabbing  envy  of  the 
night.  Not  jealousy,  for  she  loved  them  all  too  well 
for  that.  But  envy  of  their  chances,  of  their  contacts 
with  life.  Having  her  own  contacts,  she  wanted  all 
kinds  of  others  too.  Not  only  Rodney's,  Gerda's  and 
Kay's,  but  those  of  all  her  family  and  friends.  Con-> 
scious,  as  one  is  on  birthdays,  of  intense  life  hurrying\ 
swiftly  to  annihilation,  she  strove  desperately  to  dam- 
it.  It  went  too  fast.  She  looked  at  the  wet  strands  of 
black  hair  now  spread  over  her  shoulders  to  dry  in  the 
sun,  at  her  strong,  supple,  active  limbs,  and  thought  of 
the  days  to  come,  when  the  black  hair  should  be  grey 
and  the  supple  limbs  refuse  to  carry  her  up  beech  trees, 
and  when,  if  she  bathed  in  the  sunrise,  she  would  get 
rheumatism.  In  those  days,  what  did  one  do  to  keep\ 
from  sinking  in  the  black  seas  of  regret?  One  sat  by 
the  fire,  or  in  the  sunlit  garden,  old  and  grey  and  full 
of  sleep — yes,  one  went  to  sleep,  when  one  could. 
WTien  one  couldn't,  one  read.  But  one's  eyes  got  tired 
soon — Neville  thought  of  her  grandmother — and  one 
had  to  be  read  aloud  to,  by  someone  who  couldn't  read 
aloud.  That  wouldn't  be  enough  to  stifle  vain  regrets; 
only  rejoicing  actively  in  the  body  did  that.    So,  before 


NEVILLE'S  BIRTHDAY  15 

that  time  came,  one  must  have  slain  regret,  crushed  ) 
that  serpent's  head  for  good  and  all. 
/But  did  anyone  ever  succeed  in  doing  this?  Rodney, 
who  had  his  full,  successful,  useful,  interesting  life; 
Rodney,  who  had  made  his  mark  and  was  making  it; 
Rodney,  the  envy  of  many  others,  and  particularly  the 
envy  of  Neville,  with  the  jagged  ends  of  her  long  since 
broken  career  stabbing  her;  Rodney  from  time  to  time 
burned  inwardly  with  scorching  ambitions,  with  jeal- 
ousies of  other  men,  with  all  the  heats,  rancours  and 
troubles  of  the  race  that  is  set  before  us.  He  had  done, 
was  doing,  something,  but  it  wasn't  enough.  He  had 
got,  was  getting,  far, — but  it  wasn't  far  enough.  He 
couldn't  achieve  what  he  wanted;  there  were  obstacles 
everywhere.  Fools  hindered  his  work;  men  less 
capable  than  he  got  jobs  he  should  have  had.  Im- 
mersed in  politics,  he  would  have  liked  more  time  for 
writing;  he  would  have  liked  a  hundred  other  careers 
besides  his  own,  and  could  have  but  the  one.  (Gerda 
and  Kay,  still  poised  on  the  threshold  of  life,  still  be- 
lieved that  they  could  indeed  have  a  hundred.)  No, 
Rodney  was  not  immune  from  sorrow,  but  at  least  he 
had  more  with  which  to  keep  it  at  bay  than  Neville. 
Neville  had  no  personal  achievements;  she  had  only  her 
love  for  Rodney,  Gerda  and  Kay,  her  interest  in  the 
queer,  enchanting  pageant  of  life,  her  physical  vigours 
(she  could  beat  any  of  the  rest  of  them  at  swimming, 
walking,  tennis  or  squash)  and  her  active  but  wasted 
brain.  A  good  brain,  too;  she  had  easily  and  with 
brilliance  passed  her  medical  examinations  long  ago — 
those  of  them  for  v/hich  she  had  had  time  before  she 
had  been  interrupted.  But  now  a  wasted  brain;  squan- 
dered, atrophied,  gone  soft  with  disuse.  Could  she 
begin  to  use  it  now?  Or  was  she  forever  held  captive, 
in  deep  woods,  between  the  tv.-o  twilights? 


1 6  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"I  am  in  deep  woods, 
Between  the  two  twilights. 
Over  valley  and  hill 
I  hear  the  woodland  wave 
Like   the  voice  of  Time,  as  slow, 
The  voice  of  Life,  as  grave. 
The  voice  of  Death,  as  still.  .  .  ." 


The  voices,  the  young  loud  clear  voices  of  Gerda 
and  of  Kay,  shrilled  down  from  the  garden,  and  Esau 
yapped  in  answer.  They  were  calling  her.  They  had 
probably  been  to  wake  her  and  had  found  her  gone. 

Neville  smiled  (when  she  smiled  a  dimple  came  in 
one  pale  brown  cheek)  and  swung  herself  down  from 
the  beech.  Kay  and  Gerda  were  of  enormous  im- 
portance; the  most  important  things  in  life,  except 
Rodney;  but  not  everything,  because  nothing  is  ever/ 
everything  in  this  so  complex  world. 

When  she  came  out  of  the  wood  into  the  garden,  now 
all  golden  with  morning,  they  flung  themselves  upon 
her  and  called  her  a  sneak  for  not  having  wakened 
them  to  bathe. 

"You'll  be  late  for  breakfast,"  they  chanted.  "Late 
on  your  forty-third  birthday." 

They  each  had  an  arm  round  her;  they  propelled 
her  towards  the  house.  They  were  lithe,  supple 
creatures  of  twenty  and  twenty-one.  Between  them 
walked  Neville,  with  her  small,  pointed,  elfish  face, 
that  was  sensitive  to  every  breath  of  thought  and  emo- 
tion like  smooth  water  wind-stirred.  With  her  great 
violet  eyes  brooding  in  it  under  thin  black  brows,  and 
her  wet  hair  hanging  in  loose  strands,  she  looked  like 
an  ageless  w^ood-dryad  between  tw^o  slim  young  sap- 


NEVILLE'S  BIRTHDAY  17 

lings.  Kay  was  a  little  like  her  in  the  face,  only  his 
violet  eyes  were  short-sighted  and  he  wore  glasses. 
Gerda  was  smaller,  fragile  and  straight  as  a  wand,  with 
a  white  little  face  and  wavy  hair  of  pure  gold,  bobbed 
round  her  thin  white  neck.  And  with  far-set  blue  eyes 
and  a  delicate  cleft  chin  and  thin  straight  lips.  For 
all  she  looked  so  frail,  she  could  dance  all  night  and 
return  in  the  morning  cool,  composed  and  exquisite, 
like  a  lily  bud.  There  was  a  look  of  immaculate  sex- 
less purity  about  Gerda;  she  might  have  stood  for  the 
angel  Gabriel,  wide-eyed  and  young  and  grave.  With 
this  wide  innocent  look  she  would  talk  unabashed  of 
things  which  Neville  felt  revolting.  And  she,  herself, 
was  the  product  of  a  fastidious  generation  and  class, 
and  as  nearly  sexless  as  may  be  in  this  besexed  world, 
which  however  is  not,  and  can  never  be,  saying  much. 
Kay  would  do  the  same.  They  would  read  and  discuss 
Freud,  whom  Neville,  unfairly  prejudiced,  found  both 
an  obscene  maniac  and  a  liar.  They  might  laugh  with 
her  at  Freud  when  he  expanded  on  that  complex,  which- . 
ever  it  is,  by  which  mothers  and  daughters  hate  eachV 
other,  and  fathers  and  sons — but  they  both  all  the  same 
took  seriously  things  which  seemed  to  Neville  merely ' 
loathsome  imbecilities.  Gerda  and  Kay  didn't,  in  point 
of  fact,  find  so  many  things  either  funny  or  disgusting 
as  Neville  did;  throwing  her  mind  back  twenty  years, 
Neville  tried  to  remember  whether  she  had  found  the 
world  as  funny  and  as  frightful  when  she  was  a  medical 
student  as  she  did  now;  on  the  whole  she  thought  not. 
Boys  and  girls  are,  for  all  their  high  spirits,  creatures 
of  infinite  solemnities  and  pomposities.  They  laugh; 
but  the  twinkling  irony,  mocking  at  itself  and  every- 
thing else,  of  the  thirties  and  forties,  they  have  not  yet 
learnt.  They  cannot  be  gentle  cynics;  they  are  so  full 
of  faith  and  hope,  and  when  these  are  hurt  they  turn 


1 8  DANGEROUS  AGES 

savage.  About  Kay  and  Gerda  there  was  a  certain 
splendid  earnestness  with  regard  to  life.  Admirable 
creatures,  thought  Neville,  watching  them  with  whim- 
sical tenderness.  They  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  pre- 
war, dilettante  past,  the  sophisticated  gaiety  of  the 
young  century.  Their  childhood  had  been  lived  during 
the  great  war,  and  they  had  emerged  from  it  hot  with 
elemental  things,  discussing  life,  lust,  love,  politics  and 
social  reform,  with  cool  candour,  intelligent  thorough- 
ness and  Elizabethan  directness.  They  wouldn't  mind 
having  passions  and  giving  them  rein;  they  wouldn't 
think  it  vulgar,  or  even  tedious,  to  lead  loose  lives. 
Probably,  in  fact,  it  wasn't;  probably  it  was  Neville, 
and  the  people  who  had  grown  up  with  her,  who  were 
overcivilized,  too  far  from  the  crude  stuff  of  life,  the 
monotonies  and  emotionalisms  of  Nature.  And  now 
Nature  was  taking  her  rather  startling  revenge  on  the 
next  generation. 


Neville  ran  upstairs,  and  came  down  to  breakfast 
dressed  in  blue  cotton,  with  her  damp  hair  smoothly 
taken  back  from  her  broad  forehead  that  jutted  brood- 
ingly  over  her  short  pointed  face.  She  had  the  look  of 
a  dryad  at  odds  with  the  world,  a  whimsical  and  elfish 
intellectual. 

Rodney  and  Kay  and  Gerda  had  been  putting  parcels 
at  her  place,  and  a  pile  of  letters  lay  among  them. 
There  is,  anyhow,  that  about  birthdays,  however  old 
they  make  you.  Kay  had  given  her  a  splendid  great 
pocket-knife  and  a  book  he  wanted  to  read,  Gerda  an 
oak  box  she  had  carved,  and  Rodney  a  new  bicycle 
(by  the  front  door)  and  a  Brangwyn  drawing  (on  the 
table).  If  Neville  envied  Kay  and  Gerda  their  future 
careers,  she  envied  Rodney  his  present  sphere.    Her 


NEVILLE'S  BIRTHDAY  19 

husband  and  the  father  of  Gerda  and  Kay  was  a  clever 
and  distinguished-looking  man  of  forty-five,  and  mem- 
ber, in  the  Labour  interest,  for  a  division  of  Surrey. 
He  looked,  however,  more  like  a  literary  man.  How  to  / 
be  useful  though  married:  in  Rodney's  case  the  prob-  ) 
lem  was  so  simple,  in  hers  so  comphcated.  She  had 
envied  Rodney  a  little  twenty  years  ago;  then  she  had 
stopped,  because  the  bringing  up  of  Kay  and  Gerda 
had  been  a  work  in  itself;  now  she  had  begun  again. 
Rodney  and  she  were  more  like  each  other  than  they 
were  like  their  children;  they  had  some  of  the  same 
vanities,  fastidiousnesses,  humours  and  withdrawals, 
and  in  some  respects  the  same  outlook  on  life.  Only 
Rodney's  had  been  solidified  and  developed  by  the  con- 
tacts and  exigencies  of  his  career,  and  Neville's  dis- 
embodied, devitalised  and  driven  inwards  by  her  more 
dilettante  life.  She  "helped  Rodney  with  the  con- 
stituency" of  course,  but  it  was  Rodney's  constituency, 
not  hers;  she  entertained  his  friends  and  hers  when 
they  were  in  tovv^n,  but  she  knew  herself  a  light  woman, 
not  a  dealer  in  affairs.  Yet  her  nature  was  stronger 
than  Rodney's,  larger  and  more  mature;  it  was  only 
his  experience  she  lacked. 

Rodney  was  and  had  always  been  charming;  there 
could  be  no  doubt  about  that,  whatever  else  you  might 
come  to  think  about  him.  Able,  too,  but  living  on  his 
nerves,  wincing  like  a  high-strung  horse  from  the  annoy- 
ances and  disappointments  of  life,  such  as  Quaker  oats 
because  the  grape-nuts  had  come  to  an  end,  and  the 
industrial  news  of  the  morning,  which  was  as  bad  as 
usual  and  four  times  repeated  in  four  quite  different 
tones  by  the  four  daily  papers  which  lay  on  the  table. 
They  took  four  papers  not  so  much  that  there  might 
be  one  for  each  of  them  as  that  they  might  have  the 
entertainment  of  seeinsj  how  different  the  same  news 


20  DANGEROUS  AGES 

can  be  made  to  appear.  One  bond  of  union  this  family 
had  which  few  families  possess;  they  were  (roughly 
speaking)  united  politically,  so  believed  the  same  news 
to  be  good  or  bad.  The  chief  difference  in  their  po- 
litical attitude  was  that  Kay  and  Gerda  joined  socie- 
ties and  leagues,  being  still  young  enough  to  hold  that 
causes  were  helped  in  this  way. 

"What  about  to-day?"  Rodney  asked  Neville. 
"What  are  you  going  to  do?" 

She  answered,  "Tennis."  (Neville  had  once  been  a 
county  player.)  "River.  Lying  about  in  the  sun." 
(It  should  be  explained  that  it  was  one  of  those  nine 
days  of  the  English  summer  of  1920  when  this  was  a 
possible  occupation.)  "Anything  anyone  likes.  .  .  . 
I've  already  had  a  good  deal  of  day  and  a  bathe.  .  .  . 
Oh,  Nan's  coming  down  this  afternoon." 

She  got  that  out  of  a  letter.  Nan  was  her  youngest 
sister.  They  all  proceeded  to  get  and  impart  other 
things  out  of  letters,  in  the  way  of  families  who  are 
fairly  united,  as  families  go. 

Gerda  opened  her  lips  to  impart  something,  but  re- 
membered her  father's  distastes  and  refrained.  Rod- 
ney, civilised,  sensitive  and  progressive,  had  no  patience 
with  his  children's  unsophisticated  leaning  to  a  primi- 
tive crudeness.  He  told  them  they  were  young  savages. 
So  Gerda  kept  her  news  till  later,  when  she  and  Neville 
and  Kay  were  lying  on  rugs  on  the  lawn  after  Neville 
had  beaten  Kay  in  a  set  of  singles. 

They  lay  and  smoked  and  cooled,  and  Gerda,  2 
cigarette  stuck  in  one  side  of  her  mouth,  a  buttercup 
in  the  other,  mumbled  "Penelope's  baby's  come,  by  the 
way.    A  girl.    Another  surplus  woman." 

Neville's  brows  lazily  went  up. 

"Penelope  Jessop?  What's  she  doing  with  a  baby? 
I  didn't  know  she'd  got  married." 


NEVILLE'S  BIRTHDAY  21 

"Oh,  she  hasn't,  of  course.  .  .  .  Didn't  I  tell  you 
about  Penelope?    She  lives  with  Martin  Anncsley  now." 

"Oh,  I  see.  Marriage  in  the  sight  of  heaven.  That 
sort  of  thing." 

Neville  was  of  those  who  find  marriages  in  the  sight 
of  heaven  uncivilised  and  socially  reactionary,  a  re- 
version, in  fact,  to  Nature,  which  bored  her.  Gerda 
and  Kay  rightly  believed  such  marriages  to  have  some 
advantages  over  those  more  visible  to  the  human  eye 
(as  being  more  readily  dissoluble  when  fatiguing)  and 
many  advantages  over  no  marriages  at  all,  which  do  not 
increase  the  population,  so  depleted  by  the  Great  War. 
When  they  spoke  in  this  admirably  civic  sense,  Neville 
was  apt  to  say  "It  doesn't  want  increasing.  I  waited 
twenty  minutes  before  I  could  board  my  bus  at  Trafal- 
gar Square  the  other  day.  It  wants  more  depleting, 
I  should  say — a  Great  Plague  or  something,"  a  view 
which  Kay  and  Gerda  thought  truly  egotistical. 

"I  do  hope,"  said  Neville,  her  thoughts  having  led 
her  to  the  statement,  "I  do  very  much  hope  that  neither 
of  you  will  ever  perpetrate  that  sort  of  marriage.  It 
would  be  so  dreadfully  common  of  you." 

"Impossible  to  say,"  Kay  said,  vaguely. 

"Considering,"  said  Gerda,  "that  there  are  a  million 
more  women  than  men  in  this  country,  it  stands  to 
reason  that  some  system  of  polygam}^  must  become  the 
usual  thing  in  the  future." 

"It's  always  been  the  usual  thing,  darling.  Dread- 
fully usual.  It's  so  much  more  amusing  to  be  unusual 
in  these  ways." 

Neville's  voice  trailed  drowsily  away.  Polygamy. 
Sex.  Free  Love.  Love  in  chains.  The  children  seemed 
so  often  to  be  discussing  these.  Just  as,  twenty  years 
ago,  she  and  her  friends  had  seemed  always  to  be  dis- 
cussing the  Limitations  of  Personality,  the  Ethics  of 


22  DANGEROUS  AGES 

Friendship,  and  the  Nature,  if  any,  of  God.  This  last 
was  to  Kay  and  Gerda  too  hypothetical  to  be  a  stimu- 
lating theme.  It  would  have  sent  them  to  sleep,  as  sex 
did  Neville. 

Neville,  led  by  Free  Love  to  a  private  vision,  brooded 
cynically  over  savages  dancing  round  a  wood-pile  in 
primeval  forests,  engaged  in  what  missionaries,  jour- 
nalists, and  writers  of  fiction  about  our  coloured 
brothers  call  "nameless  orgies"  (as  if  you  would  ex- 
pect most  orgies  to  answer  to  their  names,  hke  the 
stars)  and  she  saw  the  steep  roads  of  the  round  v/orld 
running  back  and  back  and  back — on  or  back,  it  made 
no  difference,  since  the  world  was  round — to  this.  Saw, 
. '  too,  a  thousand  stuffy  homes  wherein  sat  couples  linked 
I  by  a  legal  formula  so  rigid,  so  lasting,  so  indelible,  that 
\  not  all  their  tears  could  wash  out  a  word  of  it,  unless 
f  they  took  to  themselves  other  mates,  in  which  case  their 
I  second  state  might  be  worse  than  their  first.  Free  love 
— love  in  chains.  How  absurd  it  all  was,  and  how 
tragic  too.  One  might  react  back  to  the  remaining 
choice — no  love  at  all — and  that  was  absurder  and 
more  tragic  still,  since  man  was  made  (among  other 
I  ends)  to  love.  Looking  under  her  heavy  lashes  at  her 
pretty  young  children,  incredibly  youthful,  absurdly 
theoretical,  fiercely  clean  of  mind  and  frank  of  speech, 
their  clearness  as  yet  unblurred  by  the  expediencies, 
compromise  and  experimental  contacts  of  life,  Neville 
was  stabbed  by  a  sharp  pang  of  fear  and  hope  for 
them.  Fear  lest  on  some  fleeting  impulse  they  might 
founder  into  the  sentimental  triviality  of  short-lived 
contacts,  or  into  the  tedium  of  bonds  which  must  out- 
live desire;  hope  that,  by  some  fortunate  chance,  they 
might  each  achieve,  as  she  had  achieved,  some  relation 
which  should  be  both  durable  and  to  be  endured.  As 
to  the  third  path — no  love  at  all — she  did  not  believe 


NEVILLE'S  BIRTHDAY  23 

that  either  Kay  or  Gerda  would  tread  that.  They 
were  emotional,  in  their  cool  and  youthful  way,  and 
also  believed  that  they  ought  to  increase  the  popula- 
tion. What  a  wonderful,  noble  thing  to  believe,  at 
twenty,  thought  Neville,  remembering  the  levity  of 
her  own  irresponsible  youth,  when  her  only  interest 
in  the  population  had  been  a  nightmare  fear  lest  they 
should  at  last  become  so  numerous  that  they  would 
be  driven  out  of  the  towns  into  the  country  and  would 
be  scuttling  over  the  moors,  downs  and  woods  like 
black  beetles  in  kitchens  in  the  night.  They  were  bet- 
ter than  she  had  been,  these  children;  more  public- 
spirited  and  more  in  earnest  about  life. 


Across  the  garden  came  Nan  Hilary,  having  come 
down  from  town  to  see  Neville  on  her  forty-third  birth- 
day. Nan  herself  was  not  so  incredibly  old  as  Neville; 
(for  forty-three  is  incredibly  old,  from  any  reasonable 
standpoint).  Nan  was  thirty-three  and  a  half.  She 
[represented  the  thirties;  she  was,  in  Neville's  mind,  a 
bridge  between  the  remote  twenties  and  the  new,  ex- 
traordinary forties  in  which  one  could  hardly  believe. 
It  seems  normal  to  be  in  the  thirties;  the  right,  ordinary 
age,  that  most  people  are.  Nan,  who  wrote,  and  lived 
'in  rooms  in  Chelsea,  was  rather  like  a  wild  animal— 
a  leopard  or  something.  Long  and  lissome,  with  a 
small,  round,  sallow  face  and  withdrawn,  brooding  yel- 
low eyes  under  sulky  black  brows  that  slanted  up  to 
the  outer  corners.  Nan  had  a  good  time  socially  and 
intellectually.  She  was  clever  and  lazy;  she  would 
fritter  away  days  and  weeks  in  idle  explorations  into 
the  humanities,  or  curled  up  in  the  sun  in  the  country 


24  DANGEROUS  AGES 

like  a  cat.    Her  worst  fault  was  a  cynical  unkindness,  / 
against  which  she  did  not  strive  because  investigating  | 
the  less  admirable  traits  of  human  beings  amused  her. 
She  was  infinitely  amused  by  her  nephew  and  her  niece, 
but  often  spiteful  to  them,  merely  because  they  were 
young.    To  sum  up,  she  was  a  cynic,  a  rake,  an  excel- 
lent literary  critic,  a  sardonic  and  brilliant  novelist,, 
and  she  had  a  passionate,  adoring  and  protecting  affec-  ) 
lion  for  Neville,  who  was  the  only  person  who  had] 
always  been  told  what  she  called  the  darker  secrets/ 
of  her  life. 

She  sat  down  on  the  grass,  her  thin  brown  hands 
clasped  round  her  ankles,  and  said  to  Neville,  "You're 
looking  very  sweet,  aged  one.  Forty-three  seems  to 
suit  you." 

"And  you,"  Neville  returned,  "look  as  if  j^ou'd  jazzed 
all  night  and  written  unkind  reviews  from  dawn  till 
breakfast  time." 

"That's  just  about  right,"  Nan  owned,  and  flung  her- 
self full  length  on  her  back,  shutting  her  eyes  against 
the  sun.  "That's  why  I've  come  down  here  to  cool 
my  jaded  nerves.  And  also  because  Rosalind  wanted 
to  lunch  with  me." 

"Have  you  read  m}-  poems  yet?"  enquired  Gerda, 
who  never  showed  the  customary  abashed  hesitation 
in  dealing  with  these  matters.  She  and  Kay  sent  their 
literary  efforts  to  Nan  to  criticise,  because  they  be- 
lieved (a)  in  her  powers  as  a  critic,  (b)  in  her  influ- 
ence in  the  literary  world.  Nan  used  in  their  behalf 
the  former  but  seldom  the  latter,  because,  in  spite  of 
queer  spasms  of  generosity,  she  was  jealous  of  Gerda 
and  Kay.  Why  should  they  want  to  write?  Why 
shouldn't  they  do  anything  else  in  the  world  but  tres- 
pass on  her  preserves?  Not  that  verse  was  what  she  ' 
ever   wrote   or   could  v/rite  herself.     And   of  course    ^ 


NEVILLE'S  BIRTHDAY  25 

everyone  wrote  now,  and  especially  the  very  young; 
but  in  a  niece  and  nephew  it  was  a  tiresome  trick. 
They  didn't  write  well,  because  no  one  of  their  age 
ever  does,  but  they  might  some  day.  They  already 
came  out  in  weekly  papers  and  anthologies  of  contem- 
porary verse.  Very  soon  they  would  come  out  in  little 
volumes.  They'd  much  better,  thought  Nan,  marry 
and  get  out  of  the  way. 

"Read  them — yes,"  Nan  returned  laconically  to 
Gerda's  question. 

"WTii^t,"  enquired  Gerda,  perseveringly,  "did  you 
think  of  them?" 

"I  said  I'd  read  them,"  Nan  replied.  "I  didn't  say 
I'd  thought  of  them." 

Gerda  looked  at  her  with  her  wide,  candid  gaze,  with 
the  unrancorous  placidity  of  the  young,  who  are  still 
used  to  being  snubbed.  Nan,  she  knew,  would  tease 
and  baffle,  withhold  and  gibe,  but  would  always  say 
what  she  thought  in  the  end,  and  what  she  thought  was 
always  worth  knowing,  even  though  she  was  middle- 
aged. 

Nan,  turning  her  lithe  body  over  on  the  grass,  caught 
the  patient  child's  look,  and  laughed.  Generous  im- 
pulses alternated  in  her  with  malicious  moods  where 
these  absurd,  solemn,  egotistic,  pretty  children  of 
Neville's  were  concerned. 

"All  right,  Blue  Eyes.  I'll  write  it  all  down  for  you 
and  send  it  to  you  with  the  MS.,  if  you  really  want  it. 
You  won't  like  it,  you  know,  but  I  suppose  you're  used 
to  that  by  now." 

Neville  listened  to  them.  Regret  turned  in  her,  cold 
and  tired  and  envious.  They  all  wrote  except  her.  To 
write:  it  wasn't  much  of  a  thing  to  do,  unless  one  did 
it  really  well,  and  it  had  never  attracted  her  personally, 
but  it  was,  nevertheless,  something — a  little  piece  of 


26  DANGEROUS  AGES 

individual  output  thrown  into  the  flowing  river.    She 
had  never  written,  even  when  she  was  Gerda's  age. 
Twenty  years  ago  writing  poetry  hadn't  been  as  it  is 
to-day,  a  necessary  part  of  youth's  accomplishment  like 
tennis,   French   or   dancing.     Besides,   Neville   could 
never  have  enjoyed  writing  poetry,  because  for  her  the 
gulf  between  good  verse  and  bad  was  too  wide  to  be^ 
bridged  by  her  own  achievements.     Nor  novels,  be- ' 
cause   she   disliked   nearly   all   novels,   finding   them  i 
tedious,  vulgar,  conventional,  and  out  of  all  relation  1 
both  to  life  as  lived  and  to  the  world  of  imagination. ' 
What  she  had  written  in  early  youth  had  been  queer 
imaginative  stuff,  woven  out  of  her  childhood's  explora- 
tions into  fairyland  and  of  her  youth's  into  those  still 
stranger  tropical  lands  beyond  seas  where  she  had 
travelled  with  her  father.     But  she  hadn't  written  or 
much  wanted  to  write;  scientific  studies  had  always 
attracted  her  more  than  literary  achievements.    Then 
she  had  married  Rodney,  and  that  was  the  end  of  all 
studies  and  achievements  for  her,  though  not  the  end 
of  anything  for  Rodney,  but  the  beginning. 

Rodney  came  out  of  the  house,  his  pipe  in  his  mouth. 
He  still  had  the  lounging  walk,  shoulders  high  and 
hands  in  pockets,  of  the  undergraduate;  the  walk  also 
of  Kay.     He  sat  down  among  his  family.     Kay  and 
Gerda  looked  at  him  with  approval ;  though  they  knew 
his  weakness,  he  was  just  the  father  they  v/ould  have) 
chosen,  and  of  how  few  parents  can  this  be  said.  They  ^ 
were  proud  to  take  him  about  with  them  to  political  j 
meetings  and  so  forth,  and  prouder  still  to  sit  under 
him  while  he  addressed  audiences.     Few  men  of  his  \ 
great  age  were  (on  the  whole)  so  right  in  the  head  and 
sound  in  the  heart,  and  fewer  still  so  delightful  to  the  ^ 
eye.    When  people  talked  about  the  Wicked  Old  ]\Ien, 
who,   being  still   unfortunately  unrestrained  and  un- 


NEVILLE'S  BIRTHDAY  27 

murdered  by  the  Young,  make  this  wicked  world  what 
it  is,  Kay  and  Gerda  always  contended  that  there  were 
a  lew  exceptions. 

Nan  gave  Rodney  her  small,  fleeting  smile.  She 
had  a  critical  friendliness  for  him,  but  had  never  be- 
lieved him  really  good  enough  for  Neville. 

Gerda  and  Kay  began  to  play  a  single,  and  Nan 
said,  "I'm  in  a  hole." 

"Broke,  darling?"  Neville  asked  her,  for  that  was 
usually  it,  though  sometimes  it  was  human  entangle- 
ments. 

Nan  nodded.  "If  I  could  have  ten  pounds.  .  .  . 
I'd  let  you  have  it  in  a  fortnight." 

"That's  easy,"  said  Rodney,  in  his  kind,  offhand 
way. 

"Of  course,"  Neville  said.    "You  old  spendthrift." 

"Thank  you,  dears.  Now  I  can  get  a  birthday  pres- 
ent for  mother." 

For  Mrs.  Hilary's  birthday  was  next  week,  and  to 
celebrate  it  her  children  habitually  assembled  at  The 
Gulls,  St.  Mary's  Bay,  where  she  lived.  Nan  always 
gave  her  a  more  expensive  present  than  she  could 
afford,  in  a  spasm  of  remorse  for  the  irritation  her 
mother  roused  in  her. 

"Oh,  poor  mother,"  Neville  exclaimed,  suddenly  re- 
membering that  jMrs.  Hilary  would  in  a  week  be  sixty- 
three,  and  that  this  must  be  worse  by  twenty  years 
than  to  be  forty-three. 

The  hurrj'ing  stream  of  life  was  loud  in  her  ears.  \ 
How  quickly  it  was  swcepino;  them  all  along — the  young 
bodies  of  Gerda  and  of  Kay  leaping  on  the  tennis  \ 
court,  the  clear,  analysing  minds  of  Nan  and  Rodney 
and  herself  musing  in  the  sun,  the  feverish  heart  of 
her  mother,  loving,  hating,  feeding  restlessly  on  itself 
by  the  seaside,  the   age-calmed   soul  of   her  grand- 


28  DANGEROUS  AGES 

mother,  who  was  eighty-four  and  drove  out  in  a  donkey 
chair  by  the  same  sea. 

The  lazy  talking  of  Rodney  and  Nan,  the  cryings 
and  strikings  of  Gerda  and  Kay,  the  noontide  chirrup- 
ings  of  birds,  the  duckings  of  distant  hens  pretending 
that  they  had  laid  eggs,  all  merged  into  the  rushing  of 
the  inexorable  river,  along  and  along  and  along.  Time, ) 
like  an  ever-roUing  stream,  bearing  all  its  sons  awayJ 
Clatter,  chatter,  clatter,  does  it  matter,  matter,  matter?  ] 
They  fly  forgotten,  as  a  dream  dies  at  the  opening  day.^ 
.  No,  it  probably  didn't  matter  at  all  what  one  did,  j 
how  much  one  got  into  one's  life,  since  there  was  to  be,y 
anyhow,  so  soon  an  end.  y^ 

The  garden  became  strange  and  far  and  flat,  liKe 
tapestry,  or  a  dream.  .  .  . 

The  lunch  gong  boomed.  Nan,  who  had  fallen 
asleep  with  the  suddenness  of  a  lower  animal,  her 
cheek  pillowed  on  her  hand,  woke  and  stretched. 
Gerda  and  Kay,  not  to  be  distracted  from  their  pur- 
pose, finished  the  set. 

"Thank  God,"  said  Nan,  "that  I  am  not  lunching 
with  Rosalind." 


CHAPTER  II 
MRS.  Hilary's  birthday 


They  all  turned  up  at  The  Gulls,  St.  Mary's  Bay,  in 
time  for  lunch  on  Mrs.  Hilary's  birthday.  It  was  her 
special  wish  that  all  those  of  her  children  who  could 
should  do  this  each  year.  Jim,  whom  she  preferred, 
couldn't  come  this  time;  he  was  a  surgeon;  it  is  an 
uncertain  profession.  The  others  all  came;  Neville 
and  Pamela  and  Gilbert  and  Nan  and  with  Gilbert 
his  wife  Rosahnd,  who  had  no  right  there  because 
she  was  only  an  in-law,  but  if  Rosalind  thought  it 
would  amuse  her  to  do  anything  you  could  not  pre- 
vent her.  She  and  Mrs.  Hilary  disliked  one  another 
a  good  deal,  though  Rosalind  would  say  to  the 
others,  "Your  darling  mother!  She's  priceless,  and 
I  adore  her!"  She  would  say  that  when  she  had 
caught  ]\Irs.  Hilary  in  a  mistake.  She  would  draw 
her  on  to  say  she  had  read  a  book  she  hadn't  read 
(it  was  a  point  of  honour  with  IMrs.  Hilary  never 
to  admit  ignorance  of  any  book  mentioned  by  others) 
and  then  she  would  say,  ''I  do  love  you,  mother! 
It's  not  out  yet;  I've  only  seen  Gilbert's  review  copy," 
and  ]Mrs.  Hilary  would  say,  "In  that  case  I  suppose  I 
am  thinking  of  another  book,"  and  Rosalind  would 
say  to  Neville  or  Pamela  or  Gilbert  or  Nan,  "Your 
darling  mother.    I  adore  her!"  and  Nan,  contemptuous 

29 


30  DANGEROUS  AGES 

of  her  mother  for  thinking  such  trivial  pretence  worth 
while,  and  with  Rosalind  for  thinking  malicious  ex- 
posure worth  while,  would  shrug  her  shoulders  and 
turn  away. 


All  but  Neville  arrived  by  the  same  train  from 
town,  the  one  getting  in  at  12.11.  Neville  had  come 
from  Surrey  the  day  before  and  spent  the  night,  because 
Mrs.  Hilary  liked  to  have  her  all  to  herself  for  a  little 
time  before  the  others  came.  After  Jim,  Neville  was 
the  child  Mrs.  Hilary  preferred.  She  had  always  been 
a  mother  with  marked  preferences.  There  were  vari- 
ous barriers  between  her  and  her  various  children; 
Gilbert,  who  was  thirty-eight,  had  annoyed  her  long 
ago  by  taking  up  literature  as  a  profession  on  leaving 
Cambridge,  instead  of  doing  what  she  described  as  "a 
man's  job,"  and  later  on  by  marrying  Rosalind,  who 
was  fast,  and,  in  Mrs.  Hilary's  opinion,  immoral. 
Pamela,  who  was  thirty-nine  and  working  in  a  settle- 
ment in  Hoxton,  annoyed  her  by  her  devotion  to 
Frances  Carr,  the  friend  with  whom  she  lived.  Mrs. 
Hilary  thought  them  very  silly,  these  close  friendships 
between  women.  They  prevented  marriage,  and  led 
to  foolish  fussing  about  one  another's  health  and  happi- 
ness. Nan  annoyed  her  by  ''getting  talked  about"  with 
men,  by  writing  books  which  Mrs.  Hilary  found  both 
dull  and  not  very  nice,  in  tone,  and  by  her  own  irritated 
reactions  to  her  mother's  personality.  Nan,  in  fact, 
was  often  rude  and  curt  to  her. 

But  Jim,  who  was  a  man  and  a  doctor,  a  strong, 
good-humoured  person  and  her  eldest  son,  annoyed  her 
not  at  all.    Nor  did  Neville,  who  was  her  eldest  daugh- 


MRS.  HILARY'S  BIRTHDAY  31 

ter  and  had  given  her  grandchildren  and  infinite 
sympathy. 

Neville,  knowing  all  these  things  and  more,  always 
arrived  on  the  evenings  before  her  mother's  birthdays, 
and  they  talked  all  the  morning.  Mrs.  Hilary  was  at 
her  best  with  Neville.  She  was  neither  irritable  nor 
nervous  nor  showing  off.  She  looked  much  less  than 
sixty-three.  She  was  a  tall,  slight,  trailing  woman,  with 
the  remains  of  beauty,  and  her  dark,  untidy  hair  was 
only  streaked  with  grey.  Since  her  husband  had  died, 
ten  years  ago,  she  had  lived  at  St.  Mary's  Bay  with 
her  mother.  It  had  been  her  old  home;  not  The  Gulls, 
but  the  vicarage,  in  the  days  when  St.  Mary's  Bay  had 
been  a  little  fishing  village  without  an  esplanade.  To 
old  Mrs.  Lennox  it  was  the  same  fishing  village  still, 
and  the  people,  even  the  summer  visitors,  were  to  her 
the  flock  of  her  late  husband,  who  had  died  twenty 
years  ago. 

"A  good  many  changes  lately,"  she  would  say  to 
them.  "Some  people  think  the  place  is  improving.  But 
I  can't  say  I  like  the  esplanade." 

But  the  visitors,  unless  they  were  very  old,  didn't 
know  anything  about  the  changes.  To  them  St.  Mary's 
Bay  was  not  a  fishing  village  but  a  seaside  resort.  To 
Mrs.  Hilary  it  was  her  old  home,  and  had  healthy  air 
and  plenty  of  people  for  her  mother  to  gossip  with  and 
was  as  good  a  place  as  any  other  for  her  to  parch  in 
like  a  withered  flower  now  that  the  work  of  her  life 
was  done.  The  work  of  her  life  had  been  making  a 
home  for  her  husband  and  children;  she  had  never 
had  either  the  desire  or  the  faculties  for  any  other 
work.  Now  that  work  was  over,  and  she  was  rather 
Ibadly  left,  as  she  cared  neither  for  cards,  knitting, 
gardening,  nor  intellectual  pursuits.  Once,  seven  years 
ago,  at  Neville's  instigation,  she  had  tried  London  hfe 


32  DANGEROUS  AGES 

for  a  time,  but  it  had  been  no  use.  The  people  she 
met  there  were  too  unlike  her,  too  intelligent  and  up  to 
date;  they  went  to  meetings  and  concerts  and  picture 
exhibitions  and  read  books  and  talked  about  public 
affairs  not  emotionally  but  coolly  and  drily;  they  were 
mildly  surprised  at  Mrs.  Hilary's  vehemence  of  feel- 
ing on  all  points,  and  she  was  strained  beyond  endur- 
ance by  their  knowledge  of  facts  and  catholicity  of 
interests.  So  she  returned  to  St.  Mary's  Bay,  where 
she  passed  muster  as  an  intelligent  woman,  gossipped 
with  her  mother,  the  servants  and  their  neighbours, 
read  novels,  brooded  over  the  happier  past,  walked  v 
for  miles  alone  along  the  coast,  and  slipped  every  now  \ 
and  then,  as  she  had  slipped  even  in  youth,  over  the 
edge  of  emotionalism  into  hysterical  passion  or  grief.  / 
Her  mother  was  no  use  at  such  times;  she  only  made 
her  worse,  sitting  there  in  the  calm  of  old  age,  looking 
tranquilly  at  the  end,  for  her  so  near  that  nothing  mat- 
tered.   Only  Jim  or  Neville  were  of  any  use  then. 

Neville  on  the  eve  of  this  her  sixty-third  birthday 
soothed  one  such  outburst.     The  tedium  of  life,  with- 
er more  to  do  in  it — v/hy  couldn't  it  end?     The  lights 
were  out,  the  flowers  were  dead — and  yet  the  unhappy  , 
actors  had  to  stay  and  stay  and  stay,  idling  on  the  / 
empty,  darkened  stage.     (That  was  how  I^lrs.  Hilary,,^ 
with  her  gift  for  picturesque  language,  put  it.)     Must  ' 
it  be  empty,  must  it  be  dark,  Neville  uselessly  asked, '' 
knowing  quite  well  that  for  one  of  her  mother's  tem- 
perament it  must.    Mrs.  Hilary  had  lived  in  and  by 
her  emotions;  nothing  else  had  counted.    Life  for  her\^ 
had  burnt  itself  out,  and  its  remnant  was  like  the  fag  / 
end  of  a  cigarette,  stale  and  old.  1 

"Shall  I  feel  like  that  in  twenty  years?"  Neville 
speculated  aloud. 


MRS.  HILARY'S  BIRTHDAY  33 

"I  hope,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  "that  you  won't  have 
lost  Rodney.     So  long  as  you  have  him  .  .  ." 

"But  if  I  haven't  .  .  ." 

Neville  looked  down  the  years;  saw  herself  without 
Rodney,  perhaps  looking  after  her  mother,  who  would 
then  have  become  (strange,  incredible  thought,  but  who 
could  say?)  calm  with  the  calm  of  age;  Kay  and  Gerda 
married  or  working  or  both.  .  .  .  What  then?     Only 
she  was  better  equipped  than  her  mother  for  the  fag  » 
end  of  life;  she  had  a  serviceable  brain  and  a  sound  I 
education.    She  wouldn't  pass  empty  days  at  a  seaside  j 
resort.     She  would  work  at  something,  and  be  inter- ,| 
ested.     Interesting  work  and  interesting  friends — her/ 
mother,  by  her  very  nature,  could  have  neither,  but  was 
just  clever  enough  to  feel  the  want  of  them.    The  thing\ 
was  to  start  some  definite  work  now,  before  it  was  too/ 
late.  '    -....— 

"Did  Grandmama  go  through  it?"  Neville  asked  her 
mother. 

"Oh,  I  expect  so.  I  was  selfish;  I  was  wrapped  up 
in  home  and  all  of  you;  I  didn't  notice.  But  I  think 
she  had  it  badly,  for  a  time,  when  first  she  left  the 
vicarage.  .  .  .  She's  contented  now." 

They  both  looked  at  Grandmama,  who  was  pla3ang 
patience  on  the  sofa  and  could  not  hear  their  talking 
for  the  sound  of  the  sea.  Yes,  Grandmama  was  (ap- 
parently) contented  now. 

"There's  work,"  mused  Neville,  thinking  of  the  vari- 
ous links  with  life,  the  rafts,  rather,  which  should  carry 
age  over  the  cold  seas  of  tedious  regret.  "And  there's  \ 
natural  gaiety.  And  intellectual  interests.  And  con- 
tacts with  other  people — permanent  contacts  and  tem- 
porary ones.  And  beauty.  All  those  things.  For  some 
people,  too,  there's  religion." 

"And  for  all  of  us  food  and  drink/'  said  Mrs.  Hilary, 


34  DANGEROUS  AGES 

sharply.  "Oh,  I  suppose  you  think  I've  no  right  to 
complain,  as  I've  got  all  those  things,  except  work." 

But  Neville  shook  her  head,  knowing  that  this  was  a 
delusion  of  her  mother's,  and  that  she  had,  in  point  of 
fact,  none  of  them,  except  the  contacts  with  people, 
which  mostly  either  over-strained,  irritated  or  bored 
her,  and  that  aspect  of  religion  which  made  her  cry. 
For  she  was  a  Unitarian,  and  thought  the  Gospels  in- 
finitely sad  and  the  souls  of  the  departed  most  probably 
so  merged  in  God  as  to  be  deprived  of  all  individuality. 

"It's  better  to  be  High  Church  or  Roman  Catholic 
and  have  services,  or  an  Evangelical  and  have  the  Voice 
of  God,"  Neville  decided.  And,  indeed,  it  is  probable 
that  Mrs.  Hilary  would  have  been  one  or  other  of  these 
things  if  it  had  not  been  for  her  late  husband,  who 
had  disapproved  of  superstition  and  had  instructed  her 
in  the  Higher  Thought  and  the  Larger  Hope. 


Though  heaviness  endured  for  the  night,  joy  came 
in  the  morning,  as  is  apt  to  happen  where  there  is  sea 
air.  Mrs.  Hilary  on  her  birthday  had  a  revulsion  to 
gaiety,  owing  to  a  fine  day,  her  unstable  temperament, 
letters,  presents  and  being  made  a  fuss  of.  Also  Grand- 
mama  said,  when  she  went  up  to  see  her  after  breakfast, 
"This  new  dress  suits  you  particularly,  my  dear  child. 
It  brings  out  the  colour  in  your  eyes,"  and  everyone 
likes  to  hear  that  when  they  are  sixty-three  or  any 
other  age. 

So,  when  the  rest  of  her  children  arrived,  Mrs.  Hilary 
was  ready  for  them. 

They  embraced  her  in  turn;  Pamela,  capable,  humor- 
ous and  intelligent,  tlie  very  type  of  the  professional 


MRS.  HILARY'S  BIRTHDAY  35 

woman  at  her  best,  but  all  the  time  preferring  Frances 
Carr,  anxious  about  her  because  she  was  over-working 
and  run  down;  Nan,  her  extravagant  present  in  her 
hands,  on  fire  to  protect  her  mother  against  old  age, 
depression  and  Rosalind,  yet  knowing  too  how  soon 
she  herself  would  be  smouldering  with  irritation;  Gil- 
bert, spare  and  cynical,  writer  of  plays  and  Hterary 
editor  of  the  Weekly  Critic,  and  with  him  his  wife 
Rosalind,  whom  Mrs.  Hilary  had  long  since  judged  as 
a  voluptuous  rake  who  led  men  on  and  made  up  un-. 
seemly  stories  and  her  lovely  face,  but  who  insisted 
on  coming  to  The  Gulls  with  Gilbert  to  see  his  adorable 
mother.  Rosalind,  who  was  always  taking  up  things 
— art,  or  religion,  or  spiritualism,  or  young  men — and  > 
dropping  them  when  they  bored  her,  had  lately  taken 
up  psycho-analysis.  She  was  studying  what  she  called 
her  mother-in-law's  "case,"  looking  for  and  finding 
complexes  in  her  past  which  should  account  for  her 
somewhat  unbalanced  present. 

"I've  never  had  complexes,"  Mrs.  Hilary  would  de- 
clare, indignantly,  as  if  they  had  been  fleas  or  worse, 
and  indeed  when  Rosalind  handled  them  they  were 
worse,  much.  From  Rosalind  Mrs.  Hilary  got  the  most 
unpleasant  impression  possible  (which  is  to  say  a  good 
deal)  of  psycho-analysts.  "They  have  only  one  idea, 
and  that  is  a  disgusting  one,"  she  would  assert,  for 
she  could  only  rarely  and  with  difficulty  see  more  than 
one  idea  in  anything,  particularly  when  it  was  a  dis- 
gusting one.  Her  mind  v/as  of  that  sort — tenacious, 
intolerant,  and  not  many-sided.  That  was  where 
(partly  where)  she  fell  foul  of  her  children,  who  saw 
sharply  and  clearly  all  around  things  and  gave  to  each 
side  its  value.  They  knew  Mrs.  Hilary  to  be  a  muddled 
bigot,  whose  mind  was  stuffed  with  concrete  instances 
and  insusceptible  of  abstract  reason.     If  an^^one  had 


36  DANGEROUS  AGES 

asked  her  what  she  knew  of  psycho-analysis,  she  would 
have  repHed,  in  effect,  that  she  knew  Rosalind,  and 
that  was  enough,  more  than  enough,  of  psycho-analysis 
for  her.  She  had  also  looked  into  Freud,  and  rightly 
had  been  disgusted. 

/"  "A  man  who  spits  deliberately  onto  his   friends' 
/stairs,  on  purpose  to  annoy  the  servants  .  .  .  that  is 
/  enough,  the  rest  follows.    The  man  is  obviously  a  loath- 
ksome  and  indecent  vulgarian.     It  comes  from  being  a 
German,  no  doubt."    Which  settled  that;  and  if  any- 
one murmured  "An  Austrian,"  she  would  say  "It  comes 
to  the  same  thing,  in  questions  of  breeding."     Mrs. 
Hilary,  like  Grandmama,  settled  people  and  things  very 
quickly  and  satisfactorily. 

They  all  sat  in  the  front  garden  after  lunch  and 
looked  out  over  the  wonderful  shining  sea.  Grand- 
mama  sat  in  her  wheeled  chair,  Tcliekov's  Letters  on 
her  knees.  She  had  made  Mrs.  Hilary  get  this  book 
from  Mudie's  because  she  had  read  favourable  reviews 
of  it  by  Gilbert  and  Nan.  Grandmama  was  a  cleverisli 
old  lady,  cleverer  than  her  daughter. 
I    "Jolly,  isn't  it,"  said  Gilbert,  seeing  the  book. 

"Very  entertaining,"  said  Grandmama,  and  Mrs. 
Hilary  echoed  "Most,"  at  which  Grandm.ama  eyed  her 
with  a  twinkle,  knowing  that  it  bored  her,  like  all  the 
Russians.  ]Mrs.  Hilary  cared  nothing  for  style 
("Literature!"  said  Lady  Adela.  "Give  me  something 
to  read!") ;  she  Hked  nice  hfelike  books  about  people 
as  she  believed  them  to  be,  and  though  she  was  quite 
prepared  to  believe  that  real  Russians  were  like  Rus- 
sians in  books,  she  felt  that  she  did  not  care  to  meet 
either  of  them.  But  Mrs.  Hilary  had  learnt  that  intelli- 
gent persons  seldom  liked  the  books  which  seemed 
to  her  to  be  about  real,  natural  people,  any  more  than 
they  admired  the  pictures  which  struck  her  as  being 


MRS.  HILARY'S  BIRTHDAY  37 

(^like  things  as  they  were.    Though  she  thought  those 
who  differed  from  her  profoundly  wrong,  she  never 
admitted  ignorance  of  the  books  they  admired.     For 
she  was  in  a  better  position  to  differ  from  them  about 
a  book  if  she  had  nominally  read  it — and  really  it  didn't 
matter  if  she  had  actually  done  so  or  not,  for  she  knew 
beforehand  what  she  would  think  of  it  if  she  had.    So 
well  she  knew  this,  indeed,  that  the  line  between  the 
books  she  had  and  hadn't  read  was,  even  in  her  own 
mind,  smudgy  and  vague,  not  hard  and  clear  as  with 
most  people.    Often  when  she  had  seen  reviews  which  i 
quoted  extracts  she  thought  she  had  read  the  book,  just  ) 
as  some  people,  when  they  have  seen  publishers'  ad-  \ 
vertisements,  think  they  have  seen  reviews,  and  dcckre  J 
roundly  in  libraries  that  a  book  is  out  when  it  lacks  a  1 
month  of  publication.  / 

Mrs.  Hilary,  having  thus  asserted  her  acquaintance 
with  Tchekcv's  Letters,  left  Gilbert,  Grandmama  and 
Neville  to  talk  about  it  together,  and  herself  began 
telling  the  others  how  disappointed  Jim  had  been  that 
he  could  not  come  for  her  birthday. 

"He  was  passionately  anxious  to  come,"  she  said,  in 
her  clear,  vibrating  voice,  that  struck  a  different  note 
when  she  mentioned  each  one  of  her  children,  so  that 
you  always  knew  which  she  meant.  "He  never  misses 
to-day  if  he  can  possibly  help  it.  But  he  simply  couldn't 
get  away.  .  .  .  One  of  these  tremendously  difficult  new 
operations,  that  hardly  anyone  can  do.  His  work  must 
come  first,  of  course.    He  wouldn't  be  Jim  if  it  didri't." 

"Fancy  knifing  people  in  town  a  day  like  this,"  said 
Rosalind,  stretching  her  large,  lazy  limbs  in  the  sun. 
Rosalind  was  big  and  fair,  and  sensuously  alive. 

]\Iusic  blared  out  from  the  parade.  Gilbert,  adjust- 
ing his  glasses,  observed  its  circumstances,  with  his  air 
of  detached,  fastidious  interest. 


38  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"The  Army,"  he  remarked.  "The  Army  calling  for 
strayed  sheep." 

"Oh,"  exclaimed  Rosalind,  raising  herself,  "wouldn't 
I  love  to  go  out  and  be  saved!  I  was  saved  once,  when 
I  was  eleven.  It  was  one  of  my  first  thrills.  I  felt  I 
was  blacker  in  guilt  than  all  creatures  before  me,  and 
I  came  forward  and  found  the  Lord.  Afraid  I  had  a 
relapse  rather  soon,  though." 

"Horrible  vulgarians,"  Mrs.  Hilary  commented, 
really  meaning  Rosalind  at  the  age  of  eleven.  "They 
have  meetings  on  the  parade  every  morning  now.  The 
police  ought  to  stop  it." 

Grandmama  was  beating  time  with  her  hand  on 
the  arm  of  her  chair  to  the  merry  music-hall  tune  and 
the  ogreish  words. 

"Blood!  Blood! 
Rivers  of  blood  for  you, 
Oceans  of  blood  for  me! 
All  that  the  sinner  has  got  to  do 
Is  to  plunge  into  that  Red  Sea. 

Clean!  Clean! 
Wash  and  be  clean! 
Though  filthy  and  black  as  a  sweep  you've  been, 
The  waves  of  that  sea  shall  make  you  clean.  .  .  ." 

"That,"  Mrs.  Hilary  asserted,  with  disgust,  "is  a 
most  disagreeable  way  of  worshipping  God."  She  was 
addicted  to  these  imdeniable  statements,  taking  nothing 
for  granted. 

"But  a  very  racy  time,  my  dear,"  said  Grandmama, 
"though  the  words  are  foolish  and  unpleasing." 

Gilbert  said,  "A  stimulating  performance.  If  we 
don't  restrain  her,  Rosalind  will  be  getting  saved 
again." 

He  was  proud  of  Rosalind's  vitality,  whimsies  and 
exuberances. 


MRS.  HILARY'S  BIRTHDAY  39 

Rosalind,  who  had  a  fine  rolling  voice,  began  reciting 
"General  Booth  enters  into  heaven,"  by  Mr.  Vachell 
Lindsay,  which  Mrs.  Hilary  found  disgusting. 

"A  wonderful  man,"  said  Grandmama,  who  had  been 
reading  the  General's  life  in  two  large  volumes. 
"Though  mistaken  about  many  things.  And  his  Life 
would  have  been  more  interesting  if  it  had  been  written 
by  Mr.  Lytton  Strachey  instead  of  Mr.  Begbie;  he 
has  a  better  touch  on  our  great  religious  leaders. 
"Your  grandfather,"  added  Grandmama,  "always  got 
on  well  with  the  Army  people.  He  encouraged  them. 
The  present  vicar  does  not.  He  says  their  methods 
are  deplorable  and  their  goal  a  delusion." 

Rosalind  said  "Their  methods  are  entrancing  and 
their  goal  the  Lord.  What  more  does  he  want?  Clergy- 
men are  so  narrow.  That's  why  I  had  to  give  up  being 
a  church  woman." 

Rosalind  had  been  a  churchwoman  (high)  for  nine 
months  some  six  years  ago,  just  after  planchette  and 
just  before  flag  days.  She  had  decided,  after  this  brief 
trial,  that  incense  and  confessions,  though  immensely 
stimulating,  did  not  weigh  down  the  balance  against 
early  mass.  Lent,  and  being  thrown  with  other  church- 
women. 


"What  about  a  bathe?"  Neville  suggested  to  all  of 
them.    "Mother?" 

Mrs.  Hilary,  a  keen  bather,  agreed.  They  all  agreed 
except  Grandmama,  who  was  going  out  in  her  donkey 
chair  instead,  as  one  does  at  eighty-four. 

They  all  went  down  to  the  beach,  where  the  Army 
still  sang  of  the  Red  Sea,  and  where  the  blue  high  tide 
clapped  white  hands  on  brown  sand. 

One  by  one  they  emerged  from  tents  and  sprang 


40  DANGEROUS  AGES 

through  the  white  leaping  edge  into  the  rocking  blue, 
as  other  bathers  were  doing  all  round  the  bay.  When 
Mrs.  Hilary  came  out  of  her  tent,  Neville  was  waiting 
for  her,  poised  like  a  slim  girl,  knee-deep  in  tumbling 
waves,  shaking  the  water  from  her  eyes. 

"Come,  mother.    I'll  race  you  out." 

Mrs.  Hilary  waded  in,  a  figure  not  without  grace 
and  dignity.  Looking  back  they  saw  Rosalind  coming 
down  the  beach,  large-limbed  and  splendid,  like  Juno, 
Mrs.  Hilary  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"Disgusting,"  she  remarked  to  Neville. 

So  much  more,  she  meant,  of  Rosalind  than  of  Rosa- 
lind's costume.  Mrs.  Hilary  preferred  it  to  be  the 
other  way  about,  for,  though  she  did  not  really  like 
either  of  them,  she  disliked  the  costume  less  than  she 
disliked  Rosalind. 

"It's  quite  in  the  fashion,"  Neville  assured  her,  and 
Mrs.  Hilary,  remarking  that  she  was  sure  of  that, 
splashed  her  head  and  face  and  pushed  off,  mainly  to 
escape  from  Rosalind,  who  always  sat  in  the  foam,  not 
being,  like  the  Hilary  family,  an  active  swimmer. 

Already  Pamela  and  Gilbert  w^ere  far  out,  swimming 
steadily  against  each  other,  and  Nan  was  tumbling 
and  turning  like  an  eel  close  behind  tnem. 

Neville  and  IMrs.  Hilary  swam  out  a  little  way. 

"I  shall  now  float  on  my  back,"  said  INIrs.  Hilary. 
"You  swim  on  and  catch  up  with  the  rest." 

"You'll  be  all  right?"  Neville  asked,  lingering. 

"Why  shouldn't  I  be  all  right?  I  bathe  nearly  every 
day,  you  know,  even  if  I  am  sixty-three."  This  was 
not  accurate;  she  only  bathed  as  a  rule  when  it  was 
warm,  and  this  seldom  occurs  on  our  island  coasts. 

Neville,  saying,  "Don't  stop  in  long,  will  you,"  left 
her  and  swam  out  into  the  blue  with  her  swift,  over- 
hand stroke,    Neville  was  the  best  swimmer  in  a  swim- 


MRS.  HILARY'S  BIRTHDAY  41 

ming  family.  She  clove  the  water  like  a  torpedo 
destroyer,  swift  and  untiring  between  the  hot  summer 
sun  and  the  cool  summer  sea.  She  shouted  to  the  others, 
caught  them  up,  raced  them  and  won,  and  then  they 
began  to  duck  each  other.  When  the  Hilary  brothers 
and  sisters  were  swimming  or  playing  together,  they 
were  even  as  they  had  been  twenty  years  ago. 

Mrs.  Hilary  watched  them,  swimming  slowly  round, 
a  few  feet  out  of  her  depth.  They  seemed  to  have  for- 
gotten her  and  her  birthday.  The  only  one  who  was 
within  speaking  distance  was  Rosalind,  wallowing  with 
her  big  white  limbs  in  tumbling  waves  on  the  shore; 
Rosalind,  whom  she  disliked;  Rosalind,  who  was  more 
than  her  costume,  which  was  not  saying  much;  Rosa- 
lind, before  whom  she  had  to  keep  up  an  appearance 
of  immense  enjoyment  because  Rosalind  was  so 
malicious. 

"You  wonderful  woman!  I  can't  think  how  you  do 
it,"  Rosalind  was  crying  to  her  in  her  rich,  ripe  voice 
out  of  the  splashing  waves.  "But  fancy  their  all  swim- 
ming out  and  leaving  you  to  yourself.  Why,  you  might 
get  cramp  and  sink.  I'm  no  use,  you  know;  I'm  hope- 
less; can't  keep  up  at  all." 

"I  shan't  trouble  you,  thank  you,"  Mrs.  Hilary  called 
back,  and  her  voice  shook  a  little  because  she  was  get- 
ting chilled. 

"Why,  you're  shivering,"  Rosalind  cried.  "WTiy 
don't  you  come  out?  You  are  wonderful,  I  do  admir^ 
you.  .  .  .  It's  no  use  waiting  for  the  others,  they'll  b^- 
ages.  ...  I  say,  look  at  Neville ;  fancy  her  being  forty- 
three.  I  never  knew  such  a  family.  .  .  .  Come  and  sit 
in  the  waves  with  me,  it's  lovely  and  warm." 

"I  prefer  swimming,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  and  she  was 
shivering  more  now.  She  never  stayed  in  so  long  as 
this;  she  usually  only  plunged  in  and  came  out. 


42  DANGEROUS  AGES 

Grandmama,  stopping  on  the  esplanade  in  her 
donkey  chair,  was  waving  and  beckoning  to  her. 
Grandmama  knew  she  had  been  in  too  long,  and  that 
her  rheumatism  would  be  bad. 

"Come  out,  dear,"  Grandmama  called,  in  her  old  thin 
voice.    "Come  out.    You've  been  m  jar  too  long." 

Mrs.  Hilary  only  waved  her  hand  to  Grandmama. 
She  was  not  going  to  come  out,  like  an  old  woman,  be- 
fore the  others  did,  the  others,  who  had  swum  out  and 
left  her  alone  on  her  birthday  bathe. 

They  were  swimming  back  now,  first  all  in  a  row, 
then  one  behind  the  other;  Neville  leading,  with  her 
arrowy  drive,  Gilbert  and  Pamela  behind,  so  alike,  with 
their  pale,  finely  cut,  intellectual  faces,  and  their  sharp 
chins  cutting  through  the  sea,  and  their  quick,  short, 
vigorous  strokes,  and  Nan,  still  far  out,  swimming  lazily 
on  her  back,  the  sun  in  her  eyes. 

Mrs.  Hilary's  heart  stirred  to  see  her  swimming 
brood,  so  graceful  and  strong  and  swift  and  young. 
They  possessed,  surely,  everything  that  was  in  the 
heaven  above  or  on  the  earth  beneath  or  in  the  water 
over  the  earth.  And  she,  who  was  sixty-three,  possessed 
nothing.  She  could  not  even  swim  with  her  children. 
They  might  have  thought  of  that,  and  stayed  with  her. 
.  .  .  Neville,  anyhow.  Jim  would  have,  said  Mrs. 
Hilary  to  herself,  half  knowing  and  half  not  knowing 
that  she  was  lying. 

"Come  out,  dear!"  called  Grandmama  from  the 
esplanade.    "You'll  be  ill!" 

Back  they  came,  Neville  first.  Neville,  seeing  from 
afar  her  mother's  blue  face,  called  "Mother  dear,  how 
cold  you  are!     You  shouldn't  have  stayed  in  so  long!" 

"I  was  waiting,"  Mrs.  Hilary  said,  "for  you." 

"Oh  why,  dear?" 

"Don't  know.    I  thought  I  would.  .  .  .  It's  pretty 


MRS.  HILARY'S  BIRTHDAY  43 

poor  fun,"  Mrs.  Hilary  added,  having  failed  after  try- 
ing not  to,  "bathing  all  alone  on  one's  birthday." 

Neville  gave  a  little  sigh,  and  gently  propelled  her 
mother  to  the  shore.  She  hadn't  felt  like  this  on  her 
birthday,  when  Kay  and  Gerda  had  gone  off  to  some 
avocation  of  their  own  and  left  her  in  the  garden.  Many 
things  she  had  felt  on  her  birthday,  but  not  this.  It  is~^ 
an  undoubted  truth  that  people  react  quite  differently  f 
to  birthdays. 

Rosalind  rose  out  of  the  foam  like  Aphrodite,  grandly 
beautiful,  though  all  the  paint  was  washed  off  her  face 
and  lips. 

"Wonderful  people,"  she  apostrophised  the  shore- 
coming  family.  "Anyone  would  think  you  were  all 
nineteen.    /  was  the  only  comfy  one." 

Rosalind  was  always  talking  about  age,  emphasising 
it,  as  if  it  were  very  important. 

They  hurried  up  to  the  tents,  and  last  of  all  came 
Nan,  riding  in  to  shore  on  a  swelling  wave  and  lying 
full  length  where  it  flung  her,  for  the  joy  of  feeling 
the  wet  sand  sucking  away  beneath  her. 


Grandmama,  waiting  for  them  on  the  esplanade,  was 
angry  with  Mrs.  Hilary. 

"My  dear  child,  didn't  you  hear  me  call?  You're 
perfectly  blue.  You  know  you  never  sta}^  in  more  than 
five  minutes.  Neville,  you  should  have  seen  that  she 
didn't.  Now  you'll  get  your  rheumatism  back,  child, 
and  only  yourself  to  thank.  It's  too  silly.  People  of 
sixty-three  carrying  on  as  if  they  were  fifty;  I've  no 
patience  with  it." 


I 


44  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"They  all  swam  out,"  said  Mrs,  Hilary,  who,  once 
having  succumbed  to  the  impulse  to  adopt  this  attitude, 
could  not  check  it.    "I  waited  for  them." 

Grandmama,  who  was  cross,  said  "Very  silly  of  you 
and  very  selfish  of  the  children.  Now  you'd  better  go 
to  bed  with  hot  bottles  and  a  posset." 

But  Mrs.  Hilary,  though  she  felt  the  red-hot  stab- 
bings  of  an  attack  of  rheumatism  already  beginning, 
stayed  up.  She  was  happier  now,  because  the  children 
were  making  a  fuss  of  her,  suggesting  remedies  and  so 
on.  She  would  stay  up,  and  show  them  she  could  be 
plucky  and  cheerful  even  with  rheumatism.  A  definite 
thing,  like  illness  or  pain,  always  put  her  on  her  mettle; 
i  it  was  so  easy  to  be  brave  when  people  knew  you  had 
j  something  to  be  brave  about,  and  so  hard  when  they 
^  didn't. 

^  They  had  an  early  tea,  and  then  Gilbert  and  Rosa- 
lind, who  were  going  out  to  dinner,  caught  the  5.15 
back  to  town.  Rosalind's  departure  made  Mrs.  Hilary 
more  cheerful  still.  She  soared  into  her  gayest  mood, 
and  told  them  amusing  stories  of  the  natives,  and  how 
much  she  and  Grandmama  shocked  some  of  them. 

"All  the  same,  dear,"  said  Grandmama  presently, 
"you  know  3^ou  often  enjoy  a  chat  with  your  neighbours 
very  much.  You'd  be  bored  to  death  with  no  one  to 
gossip  with." 

But  Neville's  hand,  slipping  into  her  mother's,  meant 
"You  shall  adopt  what  pose  you  like  on  your  birthday, 
darling.  If  you  like  to  be  too  clever  for  anyone  else 
in  the  Bay  so  that  they  bore  you  to  tears  and  you  shock 
them  to  fits — well,  you  shall,  and  we'll  believe  you." 

Nan,  listening  sulkily  to  what  she  called  to  herself 
"mother's  swank,"  for  a  moment  almost  preferred 
Rosalind,  who  was  as  frank  and  unposturing  as  an  ani- 
mal; Rosalind,  with  her  malicious  thrusts  and  her  cor- 


MRS.  HILARY'S  BIRTHDAY  45 

nipt  mind  and  her  frank  feminine  greediness.  For 
Rosalind,  anyhow,  didn't  pretend  to  herself,  though 
she  did  undoubtedly,  when  for  any  reason  it  suited  her, 
lie  to  other  people.  Mrs.  Hilary's  lying  went  all 
through,  deep  down;  it  sprang  out  of  the  roots  of  her 
being,  so  that  all  the  time  she  was  making  up,  not  only 
for  others  but  for  herself,  a  sham  person  who  did  not 
exist.  That  Nan  found  infinitely  oppressive.  So  did 
Pamela,  but  Pamela  was  more  tolerant  and  sympathetic 
and  less  ill-tempered  than  Nan,  and  observed  the  ways 
of  others  with  quiet,  ironic  humour,  saying  nothing  un- 
kind. Pamela,  when  she  didn't  like  a  way  of  talking — 
when  Rosalind,  for  instance,  was  being  mahcious  or 
indecent  or  both — would  skilfully  carry  the  talk  some- 
where else.  She  could  be  a  rapid  and  good  talker,  and 
could  tell  story  after  story,  lightly  and  coolly,  till 
danger  points  were  past.  Pamela  was  beautifully  bred; 
she  had  savoir-faire  as  well  as  kindness,  and  never  lost 
control  of  herself.  These  family  gatherings  really  bored 
her  a  little,  because  her  work  and  interests  lay  else- 
where, but  she  would  never  admit  or  show  it.  She 
was  kind  even  to  Rosalind,  though  cool.  She  had  al- 
ways been  kind  and  cool  to  Rosalind,  because  Gilbert 
was  her  special  brother,  and  when  he  had  married  this 
fast,  painted  and  unHilaryish  young  woman,  she  had 
seen  the  necessity  for  taking  firm  hold  of  an  attitude 
in  the  matter  and  retaining  it.  No  one,  not  even 
Neville,  not  even  Frances  Carr,  had  ever  seen  behind 
Pamela's  guard  where  Rosalind  was  concerned,  "When 
Nan  abused  Rosalind,  Pamela  would  say  ''Don't  be  a 
spitfire,  child.  What's  the  use?"  and  change  the  sub- 
ject. For  Rosalind  was,  in  Pamela's  viev/,  one  of  the 
'things  which  were  a  pity  but  didn't  really  matter,  so 
long  as  she  didn't  make  Gilbert  unhappy.  And  Gil- 
bert, so  far,  was  absurdly  pleased  and  proud  about  her, 


46  DANGEROUS  AGES 

in  spite  of  occasional  disapprovals  of  her  excessive 
intimacies  with  others. 

But,  whatever  they  all  felt  about  Rosalind,  there  was 
no  doubt  that  the  family  party  was  happier  for  her? 
departure.  The  departure  of  in-laws,  even  when  they 
are  quite  nice  in-laws,  often  has  this  effect  on  family 
parties.  Mrs.  Hilary  had  her  three  daughters  to  her- 
self— the  girls,  as  she  still  called  them.  She  felt  cosy 
and  comforted,  though  in  pain,  lying  on  the  sofa  by  the 
bay  window  in  the  warm  afternoon  sunshine,  while 
Grandmama  looked  at  the  London  Mercury,  which 
had  just  come  by  the  post,  and  the  girls  talked. 


Their  voices  rose  and  fell  against  the  soft  splashing 
of  the  sea;  Neville's,  sweet  and  light,  with  pretty 
cadences,  Pamela's,  crisp,  quick  and  decided,  Nan's, 
trailing  a  little,  almost  drawling  sometimes.  The  Hilary 
voices  were  all  thin,  not  rich  and  full-bodied,  like  Rosa- 
lind's.   Mrs.  Hilary's  was  thin,  like  Grandmama's. 

"Nice  voices,"  thought  Mrs.  Hilary,  languidly  listen- 
ing. "Nice  children.  But  what  nonsense  they  often 
talk." 

They  were  talking  now  about  the  Minority  Report 
of  some  committee,  which  had  been  drafted  by  Rodney. 
Rodney  and  the  Minority  and  Neville  and  Pamela  and 
Nan  were  all  interested  in  what  Mrs.  Hilary  called 
"This  Labour  nonsense  which  is  so  fashionable  now." 
Mrs.  Hilary  herself,  being  unfashionable,  was  anti- 
Labour,  since  it  was  apparent  to  her  that  the  working 
classes  had  already  more  power,  mone}^  and  education 
than  was  good  for  them,  sons  of  Belial,  fiown  with 
insolence  and  bonuses.     Grandmama,  being  so  nearly 


MRS.  HILARY'S  BIRTHDAY  47 

out  of  it  all,  was  used  only  to  say,  in  reply  to  these 
sentiments,  "It  will  make  no  difference  in  the  end.  We^ 
shall  all  be  the  same  in  the  grave,  and  in  the  life  be- 
yond. All  tliese  movements  are  very  interesting,  butj 
the  world  goes  round  just  the  same."  It  was  all  very 
well  for  Grandmama  to  be  philosophical;  she  wouldn't 
have  to  live  for  years  ruled  and  triumphed  over  by 
her  own  gardener,  which  was  the  way  Mrs.  Hilary 
saw  it. 

Mrs.  Hilary  began  to  get  angry,  hearing  the  girls 
talking  in  this  silly  way.  Of  course  it  was  natural  that 
Neville  should  agree  with  Rodney;  but  Pamela  had 
picked  up  foolish  ideas  from  working  among  the  poor 
and  living  with  Frances  Carr,  and  Nan  was,  as  usual, 
merely  wrong-headed,  childish  and  perverse. 

Suddenly  she  broke  out,  losing  her  temper,  as  she 
often  did  when  she  disagreed  with  people's  politics, 
for  she  did  not  take  a  calm  and  tolerant  view  of  these 
things. 

"I  never  heard  such  stuff  in  my  life.  I  disagree  with 
every  word  you've  all  said." 

She  always  disagreed  in  bulk,  like  that.  It  seemed 
simpler  than  arguing  separate  points,  and  took  less  time 
and  knowledge.  She  saw  Neville  wrinkling  her  broad 
forehead,  doubtfully,  as  if  wondering  how  the  subject 
could  most  easily  be  changed,  and  that  annoyed  her. 

Nan  said,  "You  mean  you  disagree  with  the  Report. 
Which  clauses  of  it?"  and  there  was  that  soft  vicious- 
ness  in  her  voice  which  showed  that  she  knew  Mrs. 
Hilary  had  not  even  read  the  Minority  Report,  or  the 
Majority  Report  either.  Nan  was  spiteful;  always  try- 
ing to  prove  that  her  mother  didn't  know  what  she 
was  talking  about;  always  trying  to  pin  her  down  on 
points  of  detail.  Like  the  people  with  whom  Mrs. 
Hilary  had  failed  to  get  on  during  her  brief  sojourn 


48  DANGEROUS  AGES 

in  London;  they  too  had  always  shunned  general  dis- 
putes about  opinion  and  sentiment,  such  as  were  car- 
ried on  with  profit  in  St.  Mary's  Bay,  and  pinned  the 
discussion  down  to  hard  facts,  about  which  the  Bay's 
information  was  inaccurate  and  incomplete.  As  if  you 
didn't  know  when  you  disagreed  with  a  thing's  whole 
drift,  whether  you  had  read  it  or  not.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Hilary 
had  never  had  any  head  for  facts. 

"It's  the  whole  idea,"  she  said,  hotly.  "And  I  de- 
test all  these  Labour  people.  Vile  creatures.  ...  Of 
course  I  don't  mean  people  like  Rodney — the  Uni- 
versity men.  They're  merely  amateurs.  But  these 
dreadful  Trades  Union  men,  with  their  walrus  mous- 
taches. .  .  .  Why  can't  they  shave,  like  other  people, 
if  they  want  to  be  taken  for  gentlemen?" 

Neville  told  her,  chaffingly,  that  she  was  a  mass  of 
prejudice. 

Grandmama,  who  had  fallen  asleep  and  dropped  the 
London  Mercury  onto  the  floor,  diverted  the  conversa- 
tion by  waking  up  and  remarking  that  it  seemed  a  less 
interesting  number  than  usual  on  the  whole,  though 
some  of  the  pieces  of  poetry  were  pretty,  and  that  IMrs. 
Hilary  ought  not  to  lie  under  the  open  window. 

Mrs.  Hilary,  who  was  getting  worse,  admitted  that 
she  had  better  be  in  bed. 

"I  hope,"  Slid  Grandmama,  "that  it  will  be  a  lesson 
to  you,  dear,  not  to  stay  in  the  water  so  long  again, 
even  if  you  do  want  to  show  off  before  j^our  daughter- 
in-law."  Grandmama,  who  disliked  Rosalind,  usually 
called  her  to  INIrs.  Hilar}'-  "your  daughter-in-law," 
saddling  her,  so  to  speak,  with  the  responsibility  for 
Gilbert's  ill-advised  marriage.  To  her  grandchildren 
she  would  refer  to  Rosalind  as  "your  sister-in-law,"  or 
"poor  Gilbert's  wife." 

"The  bathe  was  worth  it,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  swing- 


MRS.  HILARY'S  BIRTHDAY  49 

ing  up  to  high  spirits  again.    "It  was  a  glorious  bathe. 
But  I  have  got  rheumatics." 

So  Neville  stayed  on  at  The  Gulls  that  night,  to 
massage  her  mother's  joints,  and  Pamela  and  Nan  went 
back  to  Hoxton  and  Chelsea  by  the  evening  train. 
Pamela  had  supper,  as  usual,  with  Frances  Carr,  and 
Nan  with  Barry  Briscoe,  and  they  both  talked  and 
talked,  about  all  the  things  you  don't  talk  of  in  families^ 
but  only  to  friends. 


Neville  meanwhile  was  saying  to  Grandmama  in  the 
drawing-room  at  The  Gulls,  after  Mrs.  Hilary  had 
gone  to  bed,  "I  wish  mother  could  get  some  regular 
interest  or  occupation.  She  would  be  much  happier. 
Are  there  no  jobs  for  elderly  ladies  in  the  Bay?" 

"As  many  in  the  Bay,"  said  Grandmama,  up  in  arms 
for  the  Bay,  "as  anywhere  else.  Sick-visiting,  care 
committees,  boys'  and  girls'  classes,  and  so  on.  I  still 
keep  as  busy  as  I  am  able,  as  you  know." 

Neville  did  know.  "If  mother  could  do  the 
same.  .  .  ." 

"i\Iother  can't.  She's  never  been  a  rector's  wife,  as 
I  have,  and  she  doesn't  care  for  such  jobs.  Mother 
never  did  care  for  any  kind  of  work  really,  even  as  a 
girl.  She  married  when  she  was  nineteen  and  found 
the  only  work  she  was  fitted  for  and  interested  in. 
That's  over,  and  there's  no  other  she  can  turn  to.  It's 
common  enough,  child,  with  women.  They  just  have 
to  make  the  best  of  it,  and  muddle  through  somehow 
till  the  end." 

"You  were  different,  Grandmama,  weren't  you?  I 
mean,  you  were  never  at  a  loss  for  things  to  do." 


50  DANGEROUS  AGES 

Grandmama's  thin,  delicate  face  hardened  for  a  mo- 
ment into  grim  Hnes. 

"At  a  loss — yes,  I  was  what  you  call  at  a  loss  twenty  ^ 
years  ago,  when  your  grandfather  died.  The  meaning 
was  gone  out  of  life,  you  see.  I  was  sixty-four.  For 
two  years  I  was  cut  adrift  from  everything,  and  did 
nothing  but  brood  and  find  trivial  occupations  to  pass 
the  time  somehow.  I  lived  on  memories  and  emotions; 
I  was  hysterical  and  peevish  and  bored.  Then  I 
realised  it  wouldn't  do;  that  I  might  have  twenty  years 
and  more  of  life  before  me,  and  that  I  must  do  some- 
thing with  it.  So  I  took  up  again  all  of  my  old  work 
that  I  could.  It  was  the  hardest  thing  I  ever  did.  I  hated 
it  at  first.  Then  I  got  interested  again,  and  it  has  kept 
me  going  all  these  years,  though  I've  had  to  drop  most 
of  it  now  of  course.  But  now  I'm  so  near  the  end  that 
it  doesn't  matter.  You  can  drop  work  at  eighty  andT] 
f  keep  calm  and  interested  in  life.  You  can't  at  sixty;  j 
"^  it's  too  young.  .  .  .  Mother  knows  that  too,  but  there 
seems  no  work  she  can  do.  She  doesn't  care  for  parish 
work  as  I  do;  she  never  learnt  any  art  or  craft  or  handi- 
work, and  doesn't  want  to;  she  was  never  much  good 
at  intellectual  work  of  any  kind,  and  what  mind  she 
had  as  a  girl — and  her  father  and  I  did  try  to  train 
her  to  use  it — ran  all  to  seed  during  her  married  life, 
so  it's  pretty  nearly  useless  now.  She  spent  herself 
on  your  father  and  all  you  children,  and  now  she's 
bankrupt." 

"Poor  darling  mother,"  Neville  murmured. 

Grandmama  nodded.  "Just  so.  She's  left  to  read 
novels,  gossip  with  stupid  neighbours,  look  after  me, 
write  to  you  children,  go  on  walks,  and  brood  over  the 
past.  She  would  have  been  quite  happy  like  that  forty 
years  ago.    The  young  have  high  spirits,  and  can  amuse 


MRS.  HILARY'S  BIRTHDAY  51 

themselves  without  work.     She  never  wanted  work 
when  she  was  eighteen.    It's_thQ  old  who  need  work/ 
They've  lost  their  spring  and  their  zest  for  life,  and  \    ' 
need  something  to  hold  on  to.    It's  all  wrong,  the  way  ]    \ 

(we  arrange  it — making  the  young  work  and  the  old/   ' 
sit  idle.     It  should  be  the  other  way  about.     Girls 
and  boys  don't  get  bored  with  perpetual  holidays;  they) 
live  each  moment  of  them  hard;  they  would  welcome | 
the  eternal  Sabbath ;  and  indeed  I  trust  we  shall  all  do  ^ 
that,  as  our  youth  is  to  be  renewed  like  eagles.     But  \     ^ 
/old  age  on  this  earth  is  far  too  sad  to  do  nothing  inj. 
Remember  that,  child,  when  your  time  comes." 

"Why,  yes.  But  when  one's  married,  you  know,  it's 
not  so  easy,  keeping  up  with  a  job.  I  only  wish  I 
could.  .  .  .  I  don't //ifee  being  merely  a  married  woman." 
Rodney  isn't  merely  a  married  man,  after  all.  .  .  .  But 
anyhow  I'll  find  something  to  amuse  my  old  age,  even 
if  I  can't  work.  I'll  play  patience  or  croquet  or  the 
piano,  or  all  three,  and  I'll  go  to  theatres  and  picture 
shows  and  concerts  and  meetings  in  the  Albert  Hall. 
Mother  doesn't  do  any  of  those  things.  And  she  is 
so  unhappy  so  often." 

"Oh  very.  Very  unhappy.  Very  often.  .  .  .  She 
should  come  to  church  more.  This  Unitarianism  is 
depressing.  No  substance  in  it.  I'd  rather  be  a  Papist 
and  keep  God  in  a  box.  Or  belong  to  the  Army  and 
sing  about  rivers  of  blood.  I  daresay  both  are  satisfy- 
ing. All  this  sermon-on-the-mount-but-no-miracle  busi- 
ness is  most  saddening.  Because  it's  about  impossibili- 
ties. You  can  receive  a  sacrament,  and  you  can  find  ") 
salvation,  but  you  can't  live  the  sermon  on  the  mount. ) 
So  of  course  it  makes  people  discontented." 

Grandmama,  who  often  in  the  evenings  became  a 
fluent  though  drowsy  talker,  might  have  wandered  on 


52  DANGEROUS  AGES 

like  this  till  her  bed-time,  had  not  Mrs.  Hilary  here 
appeared,  in  her  dressing-gown.  She  sat  down,  and 
said,  trying  to  sound  natural  and  not  annoyed  and  fail- 
ing. "I  heard  so  much  talk,  I  thought  I  would  come 
down  and  be  in  it.  I  thought  you  were  coming  up 
to  me  again  directly,  Neville.  I  hadn't  realised  you 
meant  to  stay  down  and  talk  to  Grandmama  instead." 

She  hated  Neville  or  any  of  them,  but  especially 
Neville,  to  talk  intimately  to  Grandmama;  it  made 
her  jealous.  She  tried  and  tried  not  to  feel  this,  but 
it  was  never  any  use  her  fighting  against  jealousy,  it 
was  too  strong  for  her. 

Grandmama  said  placidly,  "Neville  and  I  were  dis- 
cussing different  forms  of  religion." 

"Is  Neville  thinking  of  adopting  one  of  them?"  Mrs. 
Hilary  enquired,  her  jealousy  making  her  sound  sar- 
castic and  scornful. 

"No,  mother.  Not  at  present.  .  .  .  Come  back  to 
bed,  and  I'll  sit  with  you,  and  we'll  talk.  I  don't  be- 
lieve you  should  be  up." 

"Oh,  I  see  I've  interrupted.  It  was  the  last  thing 
I  meant.  No,  Neville,  I'll  go  back  to  my  room  alone. 
You  go  on  with  your  talk  with  Grandmama.  I  hate 
interrupting  like  this.  I  hoped  you  would  have  let  me 
join.  I  don't  get  much  of  you  in  these  days,  after  all. 
But  stay  and  talk  to  Grandmama." 

That  was  the  point  at  which  Nan  would  have  sworn 
to  herself  and  gone  down  to  the  beach,  Neville  did 
neither.  She  was  gentle  and  soothing,  and  Grandmama 
was  infinitely  untroubled,  and  INIrs.  Hilary  presently 
picked  up  her  spirits  and  went  back  to  bed,  and  Neville 
spent  the  evening  with  her.  These  little  scenes  had 
occurred  so  often  that  they  left  only  a  slight  impression 
on  those  concerned  and  slightest  of  all  on  Mrs.  Hilary. 


MRS,  HILARY'S  BIRTHDAY  55 

8 

When  Mrs.  Hilary  and  Grandmama  were  both  set- 
tled for  the  night  (old  and  elderly  people  settle  for  the 
night — other  people  go  to  bed)  Neville  went  down  to 
the  seashore  and  lay  on  the  sand,  watching  the  moon 
rise  over  the  sea. 

Beauty  was  there,  rather  than  in  elderly  people.  But  '\ 
in  elderly  people  was  such  pathos,  such  tragedy,  such  \ 
pity,  that  they  lay  like  a  heavy  weight  on  one's  soul.  / 
If  one  could  do  anything  to  help.  ...  > 

To  be  aimless:  to  live  on  emotions  and  be  by  them 
consumed:  that  was  pitiful.    To  have  done  one's  work 
for  life,  and  to  be  in  return  cast  aside  by  life  like  a  J 
broken  tool:  that  was  tragic. 

The  thing  was  to  defy  life;  to  fly  in  the  face  of  the  ^ 
fool  nature,  break  her  absurd  rules,  and  wrest  out  of 
the  breakage  something  for  oneself  by  which  to  live  l 
at  the  last. 

Neville  flung  her  challenge  to  the  black  sea  that 
slowly  brightened  under  the  moon's  rising  eye. 


CHAPTER  III 

FAMILY    LIFE 


If  you  have  broken  off  your  medical  studies  at  London  * 
University  at  the  age  of  tv^renty-one  and  resume  them 
at  forty-three,  you  will  find  them  (one  is  told)  a  con- 
siderably tougher  job  than  you  found  them  twenty-two 
years  before.  Youth  is  the  time  to  read  for  examina^-^^ 
tions;  youth  is  used  to  such  foolishness,  and  takes  it  / 
lightly  in  its  stride.  At  thirty  you  may  be  and  prob- 
ably are  much  cleverer  than  you  were  at  twenty;  you 
will  have  more  ideas  and  better  ones,  and  infinitely 
more  power  of  original  and  creative  thought;  but  you 
will  not,  probably,  find  it  so  easy  to  grip  and  retain 
knowledge  out  of  books  and  reproduce  it  to  order.  So 
the  world  has  ordained  that  youth  shall  spend  labori- 
ous days  in  doing  this,  and  that  middle  age  shall,  in  the 
main,  put  away  these  childish  things,  and  act  and  work 
on  in  spite  of  the  information  thus  acquired. 

Neville  Bendish,  who  was  not  even  in  the  thirties, 
but  so  near  the  brink  of  senile  decay  as  the  forties, 
entered  her  name  once  more  at  the  London  University 
School  of  Medicine,  and  plunged  forthwith  into  her 
interrupted  studies.  Her  aim  v/as  to  spend  this  sum- 
mer in  reacquiring  such  knowledge  as  should  prepare 
her  for  the  October  session.  And  it  was  difficult  be- 
yond her  imaginings.    It  had  not  been  difficult  twenty- 

54 


FAMILY  LIFE  S5 

two  years  ago;  she  had  worked  then  with  pleasure  and 
interest,  and  taken  examinations  with  easy  triumph. 
As  Kay  did  now  at  Cambridge,  only  more  so,  because 
she  had  been  cleverer  than  Kay.  She  was  a  vain  crea- 
ture, and  had  believed  that  cleverness  of  hers  to  be 
unimpaired  by  life,  until  she  came  to  try.  She  sup- 
posed that  if  she  had  spent  her  married  life  in  head 
work,  her  head  would  never  have  lost  the  trick  of  it. 
But  she  hadn't.  She  had  spent  it  on  Rodney  and 
Gerda  and  Kay,  and  the  interesting,  amusing  life  led 
by  the  wife  of  a  man  in  Rodney's  position,  which  had 
brought  her  alv/ays  into  contact  with  people  and  ideas. 
Much  more  amusing  than  grinding  at  intellectual  work 
of  her  own,  but  it  apparently  caused  the  brain  to 
atrophy.  And  she  was,  anyhow,  tired  of  doing  nothing 
in  particular.  After  forty  you  must  have  your  job, 
you  must  be  independent  of  other  people's  jobs,  of 
human  and  social  contacts,  however  amusing  and 
instructive. 

Rodney  wasn't  altogether  pleased,  though  he  under- 
stood. He  wanted  her  constant  companionship  and 
interest  in  his  own  work. 

"You've  had  twenty-two  years  of  it,  darling,"  Neville 
said.  "Now  I  must  Live  my  own  Life,  as  the  Vic- 
torians used  to  put  it.  I  must  be  a  doctor;  quite  seri- 
ously I  must.  I  want  it.  It's  my  job.  The  only  one 
I  could  ever  really  have  been  much  good  at.  The 
sight  of  human  bones  or  a  rabbit's  brain  thrills  me,  as 
the  sight  of  a  platform  and  a  listening  audience  thrills 
you,  or  as  pen  and  paper  (I  suppose)  thrill  the  children. 
You  ought  to  be  glad  I  don't  vv^ant  to  write.  Our 
famil}'  seems  to  run  to  that  as  a  rule." 

"But,"  Rodney  said,  "you  don't  mean  ever  to  prac- 
tise, surely?  You  won't  have  time  for  it,  with  all  the 
other  things  you  do." 


56  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"It's  the  other  things  I  shan't  have  time  for,  old 
man.  Sorry,  but  there  it  is.  .  .  .  It's  all  along  of 
mother,  you  see.  She's  such  an  object  lesson  in  how 
not  to  grow  old.    If  she'd  been  a  doctor,  now.  .  ,  ." 

"She  couldn't  have  been  a  doctor,  possibly.  She 
hasn't  the  head.  On  the  other  hand,  you've  got  enough 
head  to  keep  going  without  the  slavery  of  a  job  like 
this,  even  when  you're  old." 

"I'm  not  so  sure.  My  brain  isn't  what  it  was;  it 
may  soften  altogether  unless  I  do  something  with  it 
before  it's  too  late.  Then  there  I  shall  be,  a  burden 
to  myself  and  everyone  else.  .  .  .  After  all,  Rodney, 
you've  your  job.  Can't  I  have  mine?  Aren't  you  a 
modern,  an  intellectual  and  a  feminist?" 

Rodney,  who  believed  with  truth  that  he  was  all 
these  things,  gave  in. 

Kay  and  Gerda,  with  the  large-minded  tolerance  of 
their  years,  thought  mother's  scheme  was  all  right  and 
rather  sporting,  if  she  really  liked  the  sort  of  thing, 
which  they,  for  their  part,  didn't. 

So  Neville  recommenced  medical  study,  finding  it 
difficult  beyond  belief.    It  made  her  head  ache. 


She  envied  Kay  and  Gerda,  as  they  all  three  lay  and 
worked  in  the  garden,  with  chocolates,  cigarettes  and 
Esau  grouped  comfortably  round  them.  Kay  was  read- 
ing economics  for  his  Tripos,  Gerda  was  drawing  pic- 
tures for  her  poems;  neither,  apparently,  found  any 
difficulty  in  concentrating  on  their  work  when  they 
happened  to  want  to. 

What,  Neville  speculated,  her  thoughts,  as  usual, 
wandering  from  her  book,  would  become  of  Gerda? 


FAMILY  LIFE  57, 

She  was  a  clever  child  at  her  own  things,  though  with 
great  gaps  in  her  equipment  of  knowledge,  which  came 
from  ignoring  at  school  those  of  her  studies  which  had 
not  seemed  to  her  of  importance.  She  had  firmly  de- 
clined a  University  educaticm;  she  had  decided  that  it 
was  not  a  fruitful  start  in  life,  and  was  also  afraid  of 
getting  an  academic  mind.  But  at  economic  and  social 
subjects,  at  drawing  and  at  writing,  she  worked  with- 
out indolence,  taking  them  earnestly,  still  young  enough 
to  believe  it  important  that  she  should  attain  pro- 
ficiency. 

Neville,  on  the  other  hand,  was  indolent.  For 
twenty- two  years  she  had  pleased  herself,  done  what  she 
wanted  when  she  wanted  to,  played  the  flirt  with  life. 
And  now  she  had  become  soft-willed.  Now,  sitting  in 
the  garden  with  her  books,  like  Gerda  and  Kay,  she 
would  find  that  the  volumes  had  slipped  from  her  knee 
and  that  she  was  listening  to  the  birds  in  the  elms.  Or 
she  would  fling  them  aside  and  get  up  and  stretch  her- 
self, and  stroll  into  the  little  wood  beyond  the  garden, 
or  down  to  the  river,  or  she  would  propose  tennis,  or  go 
up  to  town  for  some  meeting  or  concert  or  to  see  some- 
one, though  she  didn't  really  want  to,  having  quite 
enough  of  London  during  that  part  of  the  year  when 
they  lived  there.  She  only  went  up  now  because  other- 
wise she  would  be  working.  At  this  rate  she  would 
never  be  ready  to  resume  her  medical  course  in  the 
autumn. 

"I  will  attend.  I  will.  I  will,"  she  whispered  to 
herself,  a  hand  pressed  to  each  temple  to  constrain  her 
mind.  And  for  five  minutes  she  would  attend,  and 
then  she  would  drift  away  on  a  sea  of  pleasant  indo- 
lence, and  time  fluttered  away  from  her  like  an  escaping 
bird,  and  she  knew  herself  for  a  light  woman  who  would 
never  excel.     And  Kay's  brown  head  was  bent  over  his 


'58  DANGEROUS  AGES 

book,  and  raised  sometimes  to  chaff  or  talk,  and  bent 
over  his  books  again,  the  thread  of  his  attention  un- 
broken by  his  easy  interruptions.  And  Gerda's  golden 
head  lay  pillowed  in  her  two  clasped  hands,  and  she 
stared  up  at  the  blue  through  the  green  and  did  nothing 
at  all,  for  that  was  often  Gerda's  unashamed  way. 

Often  Rodney  sat  in  the  garden  too  and  worked. 
And  his  work  Neville  felt  that  she  too  could  have  done; 
it  was  work  needing  initiative  and  creative  thought, 
work  suitable  to  his  forty-five  years,  not  cramming  in 
knowledge  from  books.  Neville  at  times  thought  that 
she  too  would  stand  for  parliament  one  day.  A  foolish, 
childish  game  it  was,  and  probably  really  therefore 
more  in  her  line  than  solid  work. 


Nan  came  down  in  July  to  stay  with  them.  While 
she  was  there,  Barry  Briscoe,  who  was  helping  with  a 
W.  E.  A.  summer  school  at  Haslemere,  would  come  over 
on  Sundays  and  spend  the  day  with  them.  Not  even 
the  rains  of  July  1920  made  Barry  weary  or  depressed. 
His  eyes  were  bright  behind  his  glasses;  his  hands  were 
usually  full  of  papers,  committee  reports,  agenda,  and 
the  other  foods  he  fed  on,  unsatiated  and  unabashed. 
Barry  was  splendid.  What  ardour,  what  enthusiasm, 
burning  like  beacons  in  a  wrecked  world!  So  wrecked 
a  world  that  all  but  the  very  best  and  the  very  worst 
had  given  it  up  as  a  bad  job;  the  best  because  they 
hoped  on,  hoped  ever,  the  worst  because  of  the  pickings 
that  fall  to  such  as  they  out  of  the  collapsing  ruins. 
But  Barry,  from  the  very  heart  of  the  ruin,  would  cry 
''Here  is  what  we  must  do,"  and  his  eyes  would  gleam 
with  faith  and  resolution,  and  he  would  form  a  com- 


FAMILY  LIFE  59 

mittee  and  act.  And  when  he  saw  how  the  committee 
failed,  as  committees  will,  and  how  little  good  it  all 
was,  he  would  laugh  ruefully  and  try  something  else. 
Barry,  as  he  would  tell  you  frankly — if  you  enquired, 
not  otherwise, — believed  in  God.  He  was  the  son  of  a 
famous  Quaker  philanthropist,  and  had  been  brought 
up  to  see  good  works  done  and  even  garden  cities  built. 
I  am  aware  that  this  must  prejudice  many  people 
against  Barry;  and  indeed  many  people  were  annoyed 
by  certain  aspects  of  him.  But,  as  he  was  intellect- 
ually brilliant  and  personally  attractive,  these  people 
were  as  a  rule  ready  to  overlook  what  they  called  the 
Quaker  oats.  Nan,  who  overlooked  nothing,  was 
frankly  at  war  with  him  on  some  points,  and  he  with 
her.  Nan,  cynical,  clear-eyed,  selfish  and  blase,  cared 
nothing  for  the  salvaging  of  what  remained  of  the  world 
out  of  the  wreck,  nothing  for  the  I.  L.  P.,  less  than 
nothing  for  garden  cities,  philanthropy,  the  W.  E.  A., 
and  God.  And  committees  she  detested.  Take  them 
all  away,  and  there  remained  Barry  Briscoe,  and  for 
him  she  did  not  care  nothing. 

It  was  the  oddest  friendship,  thought  Neville,  ob- 
serving how,  when  Barry  was  there,  all  Nan's  perversi- 
ties and  moods  fell  away,  leaving  her  as  agreeable  as  he. 
Her  keen  and  ironic  intelligence  met  his,  and  they  so 
understood  each  other  that  thej^  finished  each  other's 
sentences,  and  others  present  could  only  with  difficulty 
keep  up  with  them.  Neville  believed  them  to  be  in 
love,  but  did  not  know  whether  they  had  ever  informed 
one  another  of  the  fact.  They  might  still  be  pretend- 
ing to  one  another  that  their  friendship  was  merely  one 
of  those  affectionate  intellectual  intimacies  of  v/hich 
some  of  us  have  so  many  and  vv'hich  are  so  often  mis-- 
undcrstood.  Or  they  might  not.  It  was  entirely  their 
business,  either  way. 


6o  DANGEROUS  AGES 

Barry  was  a  chatterbox.  He  lay  on  the  lawn  and 
rooted  up  daisies  and  made  them  into  ridiculous  chains, 
and  talked  and  talked  and  talked.  Rodney  and  Neville 
and  Nan  talked  too,  and  Kay  would  lunge  in  with  the 
crude  and  charming  dogmatics  of  his  years.  But 
Gerda,  chewing  a  blade  of  grass,  lay  idle  and  with- 
drawn, her  fair  brows  unpuckered  by  the  afternoon  sun 
(because  it  was  July,  1920),  her  blue  eyes  on  Barry, 
who  was  so  different;  or  else  she  would  be  withdrawn 
but  not  idle,  for  she  would  be  drawing  houses  tumbling 
down,  or  men  on  stilts,  fantastic  and  proud,  or  goblins, 
or  geese  running  with  outstretched  necks  round  a 
green.    Or  she  would  be  writing  something  hke  this: 

"I 

Float  on  the  tide, 
In  the  rain. 
I  am  the  starfish  vomited  up  by  the  retching  cod. 
He  thinks 
That  I  am  he. 
But  I  know. 
That  he  is  I. 
For  the  creature  is  far  greater  than  its  god." 

(Gerda  was  of  those  who  think  it  is  rather  chic  to 
have  one  rhyme  in  your  poem,  just  to  show  that  you 
can  do  it.) 

"That  child  over  there  makes  one  feel  so  cheap  and 
ridiculous,  jabbering  away." 

That  was  Barry,  breaking  off  to  look  at  Gerda  where 
she  lay  on  her  elbows  on  a  rug.  idle  and  still.  "And  it's 
not,"  he  went  on,  "that  she  doesn't  know  about  the 
subject,  either.     I've  heard  her  on  it." 

He  threw  the  daisy  chain  be  had  just  made  at  her, 
so  that  it  alighted  on  her  head,  hanging  askew  over  one 
eye. 


FAMILY  LIFE  6i 

"Just  like  a  daisy  bud  herself,  isn't  she,"  he  com- 
mented, and  raced  on,  forgetting  her. 

Neat  in  her  person  and  ways,  Gerda  adjusted  the 
daisy  chain  so  that  it  ringed  her  golden  head  in  an 
orderly  circle.  Like  a  daisy  bud  herself,  Rodney 
agreed  in  his  mind,  his  eyes  smiling  at  her,  his  affection,! 
momentarily  turned  that  way,  groping  for  the  wild,  re- 
mote little  soul  in  her  that  he  only  vaguely  and  pa- 
ternally knew.  The  little  pretty.  And  clever,  too,  in 
her  own  queer,  uneven  way.  But  what  was  she,  with  it 
all?  He  knew  Kay,  the  long,  sweet-tempered  boy, 
better.  For  Kay  represented  highly  civilized,  passably 
educated,  keen-minded  youth.  Gerda  wasn't  highly 
civilized,  was  hardly  passably  educated,  and  keen  would 
be  an  inapt  word  for  that  queer,  remote,  woodland 
mind  of  hers.  .  .  .  Rodney  returned  to  more  soluble 
problems. 


Mrs.  Hilary  and  Grandmama  came  to  Windover. 
Mrs.  Hilary  would  rather  have  come  without  Grand- 
mama,  but  Grandmama  enjoyed  the  jaunt,  as  she  called 
it.  For  eighty-four,  Grandmama  was  wonderfully 
sporting.  They  arrived  on  Saturday  afternoon,  and 
rested  after  the  journey,  as  is  usually  done  by  people 
of  Grandmama's  age,  and  often  by  people  of  Mrs. 
Hilary's.  Sunday  was  full  of  such  delicate  clashings 
as  occur  when  new  people  have  joined  a  party.  Grand- 
mama was  for  morning  church,  and  Neville  drove  her 
to  it  in  the  pony  carriage.  So  Mrs.  Hilary,  not  being 
able  to  endure  that  they  should  go  off  alone  together, 
had  to  go  too,  though  she  did  not  like  church,  morning 
or  other. 

She  sighed  over  it  at  lunch. 


62  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"So  stuffy.     So  long.    And  the  hymns.  .  .  ." 

But  Grandmama  said,  "My  dear,  we  had  David  and 
Goliath.     What  more  do  you  want?" 

During  David  and  Goliath  Grandmama's  head  had 
nodded  approvingly,  and  her  thin  old  lips  had  half 
smiled  at  the  valiant  child  with  his  swaggering  lies 
about  bears  and  lions,  at  the  gallant  child  and  the  giant. 

Mrs.  Hilary,  herself  romantically  sensible,  as  middle- 
aged  ladies  are,  of  valour  and  high  adventure,  granted 
Grandmama  David  and  Goliath,  but  still  repined  at  the 
hymns  and  the  sermon. 

"Good  words,  my  dear,  good  words,"  Grandmama 
said  to  that.     For  Grandmama  had  been  brought  up 
not  to  criticise  sermons,  but  had  failed  to  bring  up  Mrs. 
Hilary  to  the  same  self-abnegation.     The  trouble  with"N 
Mrs.  Hilary  was,  and  had  always  been,  that  she  ex-  / 
pected  (even  now)  too  much  of  life.     Grandmama  ex-  ' 
pected  only  what  she  got.     And  Neville,  wisest  of  all, 
had  not  listened,  for  she  too  expected  what  she  would  / 
get  if  she  did.     She  was  really  rather  like  Grandmama, 
in  her  cynically  patient  acquiescence,  only  brought  up 
in  a  different  generation,  and  not  to  hear  sermons.     In 
the  gulf  of  years  between  these  two,  Mrs.  Hilary's  rest- 
less, questing  passion  fretted  like  unquiet  waves. 


"This  Barry  Briscoe,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary  to  Neville 
after  lunch,  as  she  watched  Nan  and  he  start  off  for 
a  walk  together.     "I  suppose  he's  in  love  v/ith  her?" 

"I  suppose  so.     Something  of  the  kind,  anyhow." 

Mrs.  Hilary  said,  discontentedly,  "Another  of  Nan's 
married  men,  no  doubt.     She  collects  them." 

"No,  Barry's  not  married." 


FAMILY  LIFE  63 

Mrs.  Hilary  looked  more  interested.  "Not?  Oh, 
then  it  may  come  to  something.  ...  I  wish  Nan  would 
marry.     It's  quite  time." 

"Nan  isn't  exactly  keen  to,  you  know.  She's  got  so 
much  else  to  do." 

"Fiddlesticks.  You  don't  encourage  her  in  such 
nonsense,  I  hope,  Neville." 

"I?  It's  not  for  me  to  encourage  Nan  in  anything. 
She  doesn't  need  it.  But  as  to  marriage — yes,  I  think 
I  wish  she  would  do  it,  sometime,  whenever  she's  ready. 
It  would  give  her  something  she  hasn't  got;  emotional 
steadiness,  perhaps  I  mean.  She  squanders  a  bit,  now. 
On  the  other  hand,  her  writing  would  rather  go  to  the 
wall ;  if  she  went  on  with  it  it  would  be  against  odds  all 
the  time." 

f    "What's  writing?"  enquired  Mrs.  Hilary,  with  a  snap 
of  her  finger  and  thumb.     ''Writing!'' 

As  this  seemed  too  vague  or  too  large  a  question  for 
Neville  to  answer,  she  did  not  try  to  do  so,  and  Mrs. 
Hilary  replied  to  it  herself. 

"Mere  showing  off,"  she  explained  it.     "Throwing  \ 
your  paltry  ideas  at  a  world  which  doesn't  want  them.  / 
Writing  like  Nan's  I  mean.     It's  not  as  if  she  wrote 
really  good  books." 

"Oh  well.  \Vho  does  that,  after  all?  And  what  is 
a  good  book?"  Here  were  two  questions  which  !^Irs. 
Hilary,  in  her  turn,  could  not  answer.  Because  most 
of  the  books  which  seemed  good  to  her  did  not,  as  she 
well  knew,  seem  good  to  Neville,  or  to  any  of  her 
children,  and  she  wasn't  going  to  give  herself  away. 
She  miirmured  something  about  Thackeray  and  Dick- 
ens, which  Neville  let  pass. 

"Writing's  jiist  a  thing  to  do,  as  I  see  it,"  Neville 
went  on.     "A  job,  like  another.     One  must  have  a  job>-^ 
you  know.     Net  for  the  money,  but  for  the  job's  sake.  / 


64  DANGEROUS  AGES 

And  Nan  enjoys  it.  But  I  daresay  she'd  enjoy  mar- 
riage too." 

"Does  she  love  this  man?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  shouldn't  be  surprised.  She 
hasn't  told  me  so." 

"Probably  she  doesn't,  as  he's  single.  Nan's  so  per- 
verse.    She  will  love  the  wrong  men,  always." 

"You  shouldn't  believe  all  Rosalind  tells  you,  mother. 
Rosalind  has  a  too  vivid  fancy  and  a  scandalous 
tongue." 

Mrs.  Hilary  coloured  a  little.  She  did  not  like 
Neville  to  think  that  she  had  been  letting  Rosalind 
gossip  to  her  about  Nan. 

"You  know  perfectly  well,  Neville,  that  I  never  trust 
a  word  Rosalind  says.  I  suppose  I  needn't  rely  on  my 
daughter-in-law  for  news  about  my  own  daughter's  af- 
fairs. I  can  see  things  for  myself.  You  can't  deny 
that  Nan  has  had  compromising  affairs  with  married 
men." 

"Compromising."  Neville  turned  over  the  word, 
thoughtfully  and  fastidiously.  "Funny  word,  mother. 
I'm  not  sure  I  know  what  it  means.  But  I  don't  think 
anything  ever  compromises  Nan;  she's  too  free  for 
that.  .  .  .  Well,  let's  marry  her  off  to  Barry  Briscoe. 
It  will  be  a  quaint  menage,  but  I  daresay  they'd  pull  it 
off.  Barry's  delightful.  I  should  think  even  Nan 
could  live  with  him." 

"He  writes  books  about  education,  doesn't  he?  Edu- 
cation and  democracy." 

"Well,  he  does.  But  there's  always  something,  after 
all,  against  all  of  us.  And  it  might  be  worse.  It  might 
be  poetry  or  fiction  or  psycho-analysis." 

Neville  said  psycho-analysis  in  order  to  start  another 
hare  and  take  her  mother's  attention  off  Nan's  mar- 
riage before  the  marriage  became  crystallised  out  of  all 


FAMILY  LIFE  65 

being.  But  Mrs.  Hilary  for  the  first  time  (for  usually 
she  was  reliable)  did  not  rise.  She  looked  thoughtful, 
even  a  shade  embarrassed,  and  said  vaguely,  "Oh, 
people  must  write,  of  course.  If  it  isn't  one  thing  it 
will  be  another."  After  a  moment  she  added,  "This 
psycho-analysis,  Neville,"  saying  the  word  with  distaste 
indeed,  but  so  much  more  calmly  than  usual  that  Neville 
looked  at  her  in  surprise.  "This  psycho-analysis.  I 
suppose  it  does  make  wonderful  cures,  doesn't  it,  when 
all  is  said?" 

"Cures — oh  yes,  wonderful  cures.  Shell-shock,  in- 
somnia, nervous  depression,  lumbago,  suicidal  mania, 
family  life — anything."  Neville's  attention  was  stray- 
ing to  Grandmama,  who  was  coming  slowly  towards 
them  down  the  path,  leaning  on  her  stick,  so  she  did  not 
see  Mrs.  Hilary's  curious,  lit  eagerness. 

"But  how  can  they  cure  all  those  things  just  by  talk- 
ing indecently  about  sex?" 

"Oh  mother,  they  don't.  You're  so  crude,  darling. 
You've  got  hold  of  only  one  tiny  part  of  it — the  part 
practised  by  Austrian  professors  on  Viennese  degener- 
ates. Many  of  the  doctors  are  really  sane  and  bril- 
liant.    I  know  of  cases.  ..." 

"Well,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  quickly  and  rather  crossly, 
I  can't  talk  about  it  before  Grandmama." 

Neville  got  up  to  meet  Grandmama,  put  a  hand  under 
her  arm,  and  conducted  her  to  her  special  chair  beneath 
the  cedar.  You  had  to  help  and  conduct  someone  so 
old,  so  frail,  so  delightful  as  Grandmama,  even  if  Mrs. 
Hilary  did  wish  it  were  being  done  by  any  hand  than 
yours.  Mrs.  Hilary  in  fact  made  a  movement  to  get 
to  Grandmama  first,  but  sixty-three  does  not  rise  from 
low  deck  chairs  so  swiftly  as  forty- three.  So  she  had 
to  watch  her  daughter  leading  her  mother,  and  to  note 
once  more  with  a  familiar  pang  the  queer,  unmistakable 


66  DANGEROUS  AGES 

likeness  between  the  smooth,  clear  oval  face  and  the  old 
wrinkled  one,  the  heavily  lashed  deep  blue  eyes  and  the 
old  faded  ones,  the  elfish,  close-lipped,  dimpling  smile 
and  the  old,  elfish,  thin-lipped,  sweet  one.    Neville,  her  / 
Neville,  flower  of  her  flock,  her  loveliest,  first  and  best,! 
her  dearest  but  for  Jim,  her  pride,  and  nearer  than  Jim,  I 
because  of  sex,  which  set  Jim  on  a  platform  to  be  wor-  \ 
shipped,  but  kept  Neville  on  a  level  to  be  loved,  to  be  / 
stormed  at  when  storms  rose,  to  be  clung  to  when  all/ 
God's  waters  went  over  one's  head.     Oh  Neville,  that 
you  should  smile  at  Grandmama  like  that,  that  Grand-  \ 
mama  should,  as  she  always  had,  steal  your  confidence  ^ 
that  should  have  been  all  your  mother's!     That  you 
should  perhaps  even  talk  over  your  mother  with  Grand-  ^ 
mama  (as  if  she  were  something  further  from  each  of  /, 
you  than  each  from  the  other),  pushing  her  out  of  the 
close  circle  of  your  intimacy  into  the  region  of  prob- 
lems to  be  solved.  ...  Oh  God,  how  bitter  a  thing  to 
bear! 

The  garden,  the  summer  border  of  bright  flowers, 
swam  in  tears.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Hilary  turned  away  her  face, 
pretending  to  be  pulling  up  daisies  from  the  grass. 
But,  unlike  the  ostrich,  she  well  knew  that  they  always 
saw.  To  the  children,  as  to  Grandmama,  they  were  an 
old  story,  those  hot,  facile,  stinging  tears  of  Mrs.  Hil- 
ary's that  made  Neville  weary  with  pity,  and  Nan  cold 
with  scorn,  and  Rosalind  happy  with  lazy  malice,  and 
Pamela  bright  and  cool  and  firm,  like  a  woman  doctor. 
Only  Grandmama  took  them  unmoved,  for  she  had  al- 
ways known  them. 


Grandmama,  settled  in  her  special  chair,  remarked 
on  the  unusual  (for  July)  fineness  of  the  day,  and  re- 


FAMILY  LIFE  67 

quested  Neville  to  read  them  the  chief  items  of  news 
in  the  Observer,  which  she  had  brought  out  with  her. 
So  Neville  read  about  the  unfortunate  doings  of  the 
Supreme  Council  at  Spa,  and  Grandmama  said  "Poor 
creatures,"  tolerantly,  as  she  had  said  when  they  were 
at  Paris,  and  again  at  San  Remo;  and  about  General 
Dyer  and  the  Amritsar  debate,  and  Grandmama  said 
"Poor  man.  But  one  mustn't  treat  one's  fellow 
creatures  as  he  did,  even  the  poor  Indian,  who,  I  quite 
believe,  is  intolerably  provoking.  I  see  the  Morning 
Post  is  getting  up  a  subscription  for  him,  contributed 
to  by  Those  Who  Remember  Cawnpore,  Haters  of 
Trotzky,  Montague  and  Lansbury,  Furious  English- 
woman, and  many  other  generous  and  emotional  people. 
That  is  kind  and  right.  We  should  not  let  even  our 
more  impulsive  generals  starve." 

Then  Neville  read  about  Ireland,  which  was  just 
then  in  a  disturbed  state,  and  Grandmama  said  it 
certainly  seemed  restless,  and  mentioned  with  what 
looked  like  a  gleam  of  hope  that  they  would  never  re- 
turn, that  her  friends  the  Dormers  were  there.  Mrs. 
Hilary  shot  out,  with  still  averted  face,  that  the  whole 
of  Ireland  ought  to  be  sunk  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea, 
it  was  more  bother  than  it  was  worth.  This  was  her 
usual  and  only  contribution  towards  a  solution  of  the 
Irish  question. 

Then  Mr.  Churchill  and  Russia  had  their  turn  (it 
was  the  time  of  the  Golovin  trouble)  and  Grandmama 
said  people  seemed  always  to  get  so  very  sly,  as  well  as 
so  very  much  annoyed  and  excited,  whenever  Russia 
was  mentioned,  and  that  seemed  like  a  sign  that  God 
did  not  mean  us,  in  this  country,  to  mention  it  much, 
perhaps  not  even  to  think  of  it.  She  personally  seldom 
did.     Then  Neville  read  a  paragraph  about  the  Anglo- 


68  DANGEROUS  AGES 

Catholic  Congress,  and  about  that  Grandmama  was  for 
the  first  time  a  little  severe,  for  Grandpapa  had  not 
been  an  Anglo-Catholic,  and  indeed  in  his  day  there 
were  none  of  this  faith.  You  were  either  High  Church, 
Broad  Church  or  Evangelical.  (Unless,  of  course,  you 
had  been  led  astray  by  Huxley  and  Darwin  and  were 
nothing  whatever.)  Grandpapa  had  been  Broad,  with 
a  dash  of  Evangelical;  or  perhaps  it  was  the  other  way 
round;  but  anyhow  Grandpapa  had  not  been  High 
Church,  or,  as  they  called  it  in  his  time,  Tractarian. 
So  Grandmama  enquired,  snippily,  "Who  are  these 
Anglo-Catholics,  my  dear?  One  seems  to  hear  so  much 
of  them  in  these  days.  I  can't  help  thinking  they  are 
rather  noisy  .  .  ."  as  she  might  have  spoken  of  Bol- 
shevists, or  the  Labour  Party,  or  the  National  Party,  or 
Sinn  Fein,  or  any  other  of  the  organisations  of  which 
Grandpapa  had  been  innocent.  "There  are  so  many  of 
these  new  things,"  said  Grandmamma,  "I  daresay 
modern  young  people  like  Gerda  and  Kay  are  quite  in 
with  it  all." 

"I'm  afraid,"  said  Neville,  "that  Gerda  and  Kay  are 
secularists  at  present." 

"Poor  children,"  Grandmama  said  gently.  Secular- 
ism made  her  think  of  the  violent  and  vulgar  Mr. 
Bradlaugh.  It  was,  in  her  view,  a  noisier  thing  even 
than  Anglo-Catholicism.  "Well,  they  have  plenty  of 
time  to  get  over  it  and  settle  down  to  something 
quieter."  Broad-Evangelical  she  meant,  or  Evangeli- 
cal-Broad; and  Neville  smiled  at  the  idea  of  Gerda,  in 
particular,  being  either  of  these.  She  believed  that  if 
Gerda  were  to  turn  from  secularism  it  would  either  be 
to  Anglo-Catholicism  or  to  Rome.  Or  Gerda  might 
become  a  Quaker,  or  a  lone  mystic  contemplating  in 
v/oods,  but  a  Broad-Evangelical,  no.     There  was  a  deli- 


FAMILY  LIFE  69 

cate,  reckless  extravagance  about  Gerda  which  would 
prohibit  that.     If  you  came  to  that,  what  girl  or  boy  -n 
did,  in  these  days,  fall  into  any  of  the  categories  which    ( 
Grandmama  and  Grandpapa  had  known,  whether  re-  ' 
ligiously  or  politically?     You  might  as  well  suggest  that 
Gerda  and  Kay  should  be  Tories  or  Whigs. 

And  by  this  time  they  had  given  Mrs.  Hilary  so  much 
time  to  recover  her  poise  that  she  could  join  in,  and  say 
that  Anglo-Catholics  were  very  ostentatious  people,  and 
only  gave  all  that  money  which  they  had,  undoubtedly, 
given  at  the  recent  Congress  in  order  to  make  a  splash 
and  show  off. 

"Tearing  off  their  jewellery  in  public  like  that,"  said"' 
Mrs.  Hilary,  in  disgust,  as  she  might  have  said  tearing 
off  their  chemises,  "and  gold  watches  lying  in  piles  on  V 
the  collection  table,  still  ticking.  .  .  ."  She  felt  it  was  i 
indecent  that  the  watches  should  have  still  been  tick-  | 
ing;  it  made  the  thing  an  orgy,  like  a  revival  meeting,  or  ) 
some  cannibal  rite  at  which  victims  were  offered  up  still  i 
breathing.  .  .  . 

So  much  for  the  Anglo-Catholic  Congress.  The 
Church  Congress  was  better,  being  more  decent  and  in 
order,  though  Mrs.  Hilary  knew  that  the  whole 
established  Church  was  wrong. 

And  so  they  came  to  literature,  to  a  review  of  Mr. 
Conrad's  new  novel  and  a  paragraph  about  a  famous 
annual  literary  prize.  Grandmama  thought  it  very 
nice  that  young  writers  should  be  encouraged  by  cash 
prizes.  "Not,"  as  she  added,  "that  there  seems  any 
danger  of  any  of  them  being  discouraged,  even  without 
that.  .  .  .  But  Nan  and  Kay  and  Gerda  ought  to  go  in 
for  it.     It  would  be  a  nice  thing  for  them  to  work  for." 

Then  Grandmama,  settling  down  with  her  pleased 
old  smile  to  something  which  mattered  more  than  the 


70  DANGEROUS  AGES 

news  in  the  papers,  said  "And  now,  dear,  I  want  to  hear 
all  about  this  friendship  of  Nan's  and  this  nice  young 
Mr.  Briscoe." 

So  Neville  again  had  to  answer  questions  about  that. 


Mrs.  Hilary,  abruptly  leaving  them,  trailed  away 
by  herself  to  the  house.  Since  she  mightn't  have 
Neville  to  herself  for  the  afternoon  she  wouldn't  stay 
and  share  her.  But  when  she  reached  the  house  and 
looked  out  at  them  through  the  drawing-room  windows, 
their  intimacy  stabbed  her  with  a  pang  so  sharp  that 
she  Vv^ished  she  had  sta5^ed. 

Besides,  what  was  there  to  do  indoors?  No  novels 
lay  about  that  looked  readable,  only  "The  Rescue" 
(and  she  couldn't  read  Conrad,  he  was  so  nautical)  and 
a  few  others  which  looked  deficient  in  plot  and  as  if 
they  were  trying  to  be  clever.  She  turned  them  over 
restlessly,  and  put  them  down  again.  She  wasn't 
sleepy,  and  hated  writing  letters.  She  wanted  someone 
to  talk  to,  and  there  was  no  one,  unless  she  rang  for 
the  housemaid.  Oh,  this  dreadful  ennui.  .  .  .  Did 
anyone  in  the  world  know  it  but  her?  The  others  all 
seemed  busy  and  bright.  That  was  because  they  were 
young.  And  Grandmama  seemed  serene  and  bright? 
That  was  because  she  v/as  old,  close  to  the  edge  of  life, 
and  sat  looking  over  the  gulf  into  space,  not  caring.  '^ 
But  for  Mrs.  Hilary  there  was  ennui,  and  the  dim, 
empty  room  in  the  cold  grey  July  afternoon.  The 
empty  stage;  no  audience,  no  actors.  Only  a  lonely, 
disillusioned  actress  trailing  about  it,  hungry  for  the 
past.  ...  A  book  Gerda  had  been  reading  lay  on  the 
table.    "The  Breath  of  Life,"  it  was  called,  which  was 


FAMILY  LIFE  71 

surely  just  what  Mrs.  Hilary  wanted.  She  picked  it 
up,  opened  it,  turned  the  pages,  then,  tucking  it  away 
out  of  sight  under  her  arm,  left  the  room  and  went  up- 
stairs. 

"Many  wonderful  cures,"  Neville  had  said.  And 
had  mentioned  depression  as  one  of  the  diseases  cured. 
What,  after  all,  if  there  was  something  in  this  stuff 
which  she  had  never  tried  to  understand,  had  always 
dismissed,  according  to  her  habit,  with  a  single  label? 
"Labels  don't  help.  Labels  get  you  nowhere."  How 
often  the  children  had  told  her  that,  finding  her  terse 
terminology  that  of  a  shallow  mind,  endowed  with  in- 
adequate machinery  for  acquiring  and  retaining  knowl- 
edge, as  indeed  it  was. 


8 

Gerda,  going  up  to  Mrs.  Hilary's  room  to  tell  her 
about  tea,  found  her  asleep  on  the  sofa,  with  "The 
Breath  of  Life"  fallen  open  from  her  hand.  A  smile 
flickered  on  Gerda's  delicate  mouth,  for  she  had  heard 
her  grandmother  on  the  subject  of  psycho-analysis,  and 
here  she  was,  having  taken  to  herself  the  book  which 
Gerda  was  reading  for  her  Freud  circle.  Gerda  read 
a  paragraph  on  the  open  page. 

"It  will  often  be  found  that  what  we  believe  to  be  un- 
happiness  is  really,  in  the  secret  and  unconscious  self,  a 
\  j^y?  which  the  familiar  process  of  inversion  sends  up 
(  into  our  consciousness  in  the  form  of  grief.     If,  for  in- 
stance, a  mother  bewails  the  illness  of  her  child,  it  is 
because  her  unconscious  self  is  experiencing  the  pleasure 
of  importance,  of  being  condoled  and  sympathised  with, 
/   as  also  that  of  having  her  child  (if  it  is  a  male)  entirely 
I  for  the  time  dependent  on  her  ministrations.     If,  on 


72  DANGEROUS  AGES 

the  other  hand,  the  sick  child  is  her  daughter,  her  grief 
is  in  reahty  a  hope  that  this,  her  j'^oung  rival,  may  die, 
and  leave  her  supreme  in  the  affections  of  her  husband. 
If,  in  either  of  these  cases,  she  can  be  brought  to  face 
and  understand  this  truth,  her  grief  will  invert  itself 
again  and  become  a  conscious  joy.  .  .  ." 

"I  wonder  if  Grandmother  believes  all  that,"  specu- 
lated Gerda,  who  did. 

Then  she  said  aloud,  "Grandmother"  (that  was  what 
Gerda  and  Kay  called  her,  distinguishing  her  thus  from 
Great-Grandmama),  "tea's  ready." 

Mrs.  Hilary  woke  with  a  start.  "The  Breath  of 
Life"  fell  on  the  floor  with  a  bang.  Mrs.  Hilary  looked 
up  and  saw  Gerda  and  blushed. 

"I've  been  asleep.  ...  I  took  up  this  ridiculous 
book  of  yours  to  look  at.  The  most  absurd  stuff.  .  .  . 
How  can  you  children  muddle  your  minds  with  it?  Be- 
sides, it  isn't  at  all  a  nice  book  for  you,  my  child.  I 
came  on  several  very  queer  things.  .  .  ." 

But  the  candid  innocence  of  Gerda's  wide  blue  eyes 
on  hers  transcended  "nice"  and  "not  nice."  .  .  .  You 
might  as  well  talk  like  that  to  a  wood  anemone,  or  a 
wild  rabbit.  ...  If  her  grandmother  had  only  known, 
Gerda  at  twenty  had  discussed  things  which  Mrs. 
Hilary,  in  all  her  sixty-three  years,  had  never  heard 
mentioned.    Gerda  knew  of  things  of  which  Mrs.  Hilary 
would  have  indignantly  and  sincerely  denied  the  exist- 
ence.    Gerda's  young  mind  was  a  cess-pool,  a  clears 
little  dew-pond,  according  to  how  you  looked  at  it.j 
Gerda   and   Gerda's   friends   knew  no   inhibitions  of  ? 
speech  or  thought.     They  believed  that  the  truth  would  , 
make  them  free,  and  the  truth  about  life  is,  from  some 
points  of  view,  a  squalid  and  gross  thing.     But  better 
lock  it  in  the  face,  thought  Gerda  and  her  contempo- 
raries, than  pretend  it  isn't  there,  as  elderly  people  do. 


FAMILY  LIFE  73 

"I  don't  want  you  to  pretend  anything  isn't  there,  x 
darling,"  Neville,  between  the  two  generations,  had  j 
said  to  Gerda  once.  ''Only  it  seems  to  me  that  some  \ 
of  you  children  have  one  particular  kind  of  truth  too  ( 
heavily  on  your  minds.  It  seems  to  block  the  world  for  ' 
you." 

*'You   mean   sex,"    Gerda   had   told   her,   bluntly. 
"Well,  it  runs  all  through  hfe,  mother.    What's  the  use  \ 
of  hiding  from  it?     The  only  way  to  get  even  with  it  / 
is  to  face  it.     And  use  it."  ' 

"Face  it  and  use  it  by  all  means.  All  I  meant  was, 
it's  a  question  of  emphasis.     There  are  other  things. 

Of  course  Gerda  knew  that.     There  was  drawing, 
and  poetry,  and  beauty,  and  dancing,  and  swimming, 
and  music,  and  politics,  and  economics.     Of  course 
there  were  other  things;  no  doubt  about  that.     They 
were  like  songs,  like  colour,  like  sunrise,  like  flowers, 
these  other  things.     But  the  basis  of  life  was  the  desire^"^ 
of  the  male  for  the  female  and  of  the  female  for  the  / 
male.     And  this  had  been  warped  and  smothered  and  ) 
talked  down  and  made  a  furtive,  shameful  thing,  and  ) 
it  must  be  brought  out  into  the  day.  ...  7 

Neville  smiled  to  hear  all  this  tripping  sweetly  off 
Gerda's  lips. 

"All  right,  darling,  don't  mind  me.  Go  ahead  and  \ 
bring  it  out  into  the  day,  if  you  think  the  subject  really  ) 
needs  more  airing  than  it  already  gets,  I  should  have' 
thought  myself  it  got  lots,  and  always  had." 

And  there  they  were;  they  talked  at  cross  purposes, 
these  two,  across  the  gulf  of  twenty  years,  and  with  the 
best  will  in  the  world  could  not  hope  to  understand, 
either  of  them,  what  the  other  was  realb/  at.  And  now 
here  was  Gerda,  in  Mrs.  Hilary's  bedroom,  looking 
across  a  gulf  of  forty  years  and  sa3dng  nothing  at  all. 


74  DANGEROUS  AGES 

f  for  she  knew  it  would  be  of  no  manner  of  use,  since 
^, words  don't  carry  as  far  as  that. 

So  all  she  said  was  "Tea's  ready,  Grandmother." 
And  Mrs.  Hilary  supposed  that  Gerda  hadn't,  prob- 
ably, noticed  or  understood  those  very  queer  things  she 
had  come  upon  while  reading  "The  Breath  of  Life." 
They  went  down  to  tea. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ROOTS 


It  was  a  Monday  evening,  late  in  July.  Pamela  Hil- 
ary, returning  from  a  Care  Committee  meeting,  fitted 
her  latch-key  into  the  door  of  the  rooms  in  Cow  Lane 
which  she  shared  with  Frances  Carr,  and  let  herself  into 
the  hot  dark  passage  hall. 

A  voice  from  a  room  on  the  right  called  "Come  along, 
my  dear.     Your  pap's  ready." 

Pamela  entered  the  room  on  the  right.  A  pleasant, 
Oxfordish  room,  with  the  brown  paper  and  plain  green 
curtains  of  the  college  days  of  these  women,  and  Diirer 
engravings,  and  sweet  peas  in  a  bowl,  and  Frances  Carr 
stirring  bread  and  milk  over  a  gas  ring.  Frances  Carr 
was  small  and  thirty-eight,  and  had  a  nice  brown  face 
and  a  merry  smile.  Pamela  was  a  year  older  and  tall 
and  straight  and  pale,  and  her  ash-brown  hair  swept 
smoothly  back  from  a  broad  white  forehead.  Her  grey 
eyes  regarded  the  world  shrewdly  and  pleasantly 
through  pince-nez.  Pamela  was  distinguished-looking, 
and  so  well-bred  that  you  never  got  through  her  guard; 
she  never  hurt  the  feelings  of  others  or  betrayed  her 
own.  Competent  she  was,  too,  and  the  best  organiser 
in  Hoxton,  which  is  to  say  a  great  deal,  Hoxton  needing 
and  getting,  one  way  and  another,  a  good  deal  of  or- 
ganisation. Some  people  complained  that  they 
couldn't  get  to  know  Pamela,  the  guard  was  too  com- 
plete.    But  Frances  Carr  knew  her. 

7.S 


76  DANGEROUS  AGES 

Frances  Carr  had  piled  cushions  in  a  deep  chair  for 
her. 

"Lie  back  and  be  comfy,  old  thing,  and  I'll  give  you 
your  pap." 

She  handed  Pamela  the  steaming  bowl,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  take  off  her  friend's  shoes  and  substitute 
moccasin  slippers.  It  was  thus  that  she  and  Pamela 
had  mothered  one  another  at  Somerville  eighteen  years 
ago,  and  ever  since.  They  had  the  maternal  instinct, 
like  so  many  women. 

"Well,  how  went  it?     How  was  Mrs.  Cox?" 

Mrs.  Cox  was  the  chairwoman  of  the  Committee. 
All  com.mittee  members  know  that  the  chairm.an  or 
woman  is  a  ticklish  problem,  if  not  a  sore  burden. 

"Oh  well.  .  .  ."  Pamela  dismissed  Mrs.  Cox  with 
half  a  smile.  "Might  have  been  worse.  ...  Oh  look 
here,  Frank.     About  the  library  fund.  .  .  ." 

The  front  door-bell  tingled  through  the  house. 

Frances  Carr  said  "Oh  hang.  All  right,  I'll  see  to  it. 
If  it's  Care  or  Continuation  or  Library,  I  shall  send  it 
away.  You're  not  going  to  do  any  more  business  to- 
night." 

She  went  to  the  door,  and  there,  her  lithe,  drooping 
slimness  outlined  against  the  gas-lit  street,  stood  Nan 
miary. 

"Oh,  Nan,  .  .  .  But  what  a  late  call.  Yes,  Pamela's 
just  in  from  a  committee.  Tired  to  death;  she's  had 
neuralgia  all  this  week.  She  mustn't  sit  up  late,  really. 
But  come  along  in." 


Nan  came  into  the  room,  her  dark  eyes  blinking 
against  the  gaslight,  her  small  round  face  pale  and 


<. 


ROOTS  77 

smutty.     She  bent  to  kiss  Pamela,  then  curled  herself 
up  in  a  wicker  chair  and  yawned. 

"The  night  is  damp  and  dirty.  No,  no  food,  thanks. 
I've  dined.  After  dinner  I  was  bored,  so  I  came  along  to 
pass  the  time.  .  .  .  When  are  you  taking  your  holi- 
days, both  of  you?     It's  time." 

"Pamela's  going  for  hers  next  week,"  said  Frances 
Carr,  handing  Nan  a  cigarette. 

"On  the  contrary,"  said  Pamela,  "Frances  is  going 
for  hers  next  week.  Mine  is  to  be  September  this 
year." 

"Now,  we've  had  all  this  out  before,  Pam,  you  know 
we  have.  You  faithfully  promised  to  take  August  if 
your  neuralgia  came  on  again,  and  it  has.  Tell  her  she 
is  to,  Nan." 

"She  wouldn't  do  it  the  more  if  I  did,"  Nan  said, 
lazily.     These  competitions  in  unselfishness  between 
Pamela  and  Frances  Carr  always  bored  her.     There 
was  no  end  to  them.     Women  are  so  terrifically  self-ab^ 
negatory;  they  must  give,  give,  give,  to  someone  all  the! 
time.     Women,  that  is,  of  the  mothering  t3^pe,  such  as  i 
these.     They  must  be  forever  cherishing  something,  k 
sending  someone  to  bed  with  bread  and  milk,  guarding' 
someone  from  fatigue. 

"It  ought  to  be  their  children,"  thought  Nan,  swiftly. 
"But  they  pour  it  out  on  one  another  instead." 

Having  put  her  hand  on  the  clue,  she  ceased  to  be  in- 
terested in  the  exhibition.  It  was,  in  fact,  no  more  and 
,no  less  interesting  than  if  it  had  been  their  children. 
Most  sorts  of  love  were  rather  dull,  to  the  spectator. 
Pamela  and  Frances  were  all  right;  decent  people,  not 
sloppy,  not  gushing,  but  fine  and  direct  and  keen, 
though  rather  borino:  when  they  began  to  talk  to  each 
other  about  some  silly  old  thing  that  had  happened  in 
their  last  year  at  Oxford,  or  their  first  year,  or  on  some 


78  DANGEROUS  AGES 

reading  party.  Some  people  re-live  their  lives  like  this  A 
others  pass  on  their  way,  leaving  the  past  behindjj 
They  were  all  right,  Pamela  and  Frances.  But  all  this 
mothering.  .  .  . 

Yet  how  happy  they  were,  these  two,  in  their  useful, 
competent  work  and  devoted  friendship.  They  had 
achieved  contacts  with  life,  permanent  contacts.  Pa- 
mela, in  spite  of  her  neuralgia,  expressed  calm  and  en- 
tirely unbumptious  attainment.  Nan  feverish  seeking. 
For  Nan's  contacts  with  life  were  not  permanent,  but 
suddenly  vivid  and  passing;  the  links  broke  and  she 
flew  off  at  a  tangent.  Nan  had  lately  been  taken  with 
a  desperate  fear  of  becoming  like  her  mother,  when  she 
was  old  and  couldn't  write  any  more,  or  love  any  more 
men.  Horrible  thought,  to  be  like  Mrs.  Hilary,  roam- 
ing, questing,  feverishly  devoured  by  her  own  impa- 
tience of  life.  .  .  . 

In  here  it  was  cool  and  calm,  soft  and  blurred  with 
the  smoke  of  their  cigarettes.  Frances  Carr  left  them 
to  talk,  telling  them  not  to  be  late.  When  she  had 
gone,  Pamela  said  "I  thought  you  were  still  down  at 
Windover,  Nan." 

"Left  it  on  Saturday.  .  .  .  Mother  and  Grandmama 
had  been  there  a  week.  I  couldn't  stick  it  any  longer. 
Mother  was  outrageously  jealous,  of  course." 

"Neville  and  Grandmama?     Poor  mother," 

"Oh  yes,  poor  mother.  But  it  gets  on  my  nerves. 
Neville's  an  angel.  I  can't  think  how  she  sticks  it. 
For  that  matter,  I  never  know  how  she  puts  up  with 
Rodney's  spoilt  fractiousness.  ,  .  .  And  altogether  life 
was  a  bit  of  a  strain  ...  no  peace.  And  I  wanted 
some  peace  and  solitude,  to  make  up  my  mind  in." 

"Are  you  making  it  up  now?"  Pamela,  mildly  in- 
terested, presumed  it  was  a  man. 

"Trying  to.     It  isn't  made  yet.     That's  why  I  roam 


ROOTS  79 

about  your  horrible  slums  in  the  dark.  I'm  consider- 
ing; getting  things  into  focus.     Seeing  them  all  round." 

"Well,  that  sounds  all  right." 

"Pam."  Nan  leant  forward  abruptly,  her  cigarette 
between  two  brown  fingers.  "Are  you  happy?  Do 
you  enjoy  your  life?" 

Pamela  withdrew,  lightly,  inevitably,  behind  guards. 

"Within  reason,  yes.  When  committees  aren't  too 
tiresome,  and  the  accounts  balance,  and  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  give  me  a  straight  answer,  Pam.  You  de- 
pendable, practical  people  are  always  frivolous  about 
things  that  matter.  Are  you  happy?  Do  you  feel 
{right-side-up  with  life?" 

"In  the  main — yes."     Pamela  was  more  serious  this 
time.     "One's  d^oingqne's  job,  after  all.     And  humaiK 
beings  are Jnteresting,"  '^ 

"But  I've  got  that  too.     My  job,  and  human  beings. 

.  .  .  Why  do  I  feel  all  tossed  about,  like  a  boat  on  a 

choppy  sea?     Oh,  I  know  life's  furiously  amusing  and 

exciting — of  course  it  is.     But  I  want  something  solid. 

You've  got  it,  somehow." 

Nan  broke  off  and  thought  "It's  Frances  Carr  she's 
got.  That's  permanent.  That  goes  on.  Pamela's 
anchored.  All  these  people  I  have — these  men  and 
woi^en — they're  not  anchors,  they're  stimulants,  and 
how  different  that  is!" 

They  looked  at  each  other  in  silence.  Pamela  said 
then,  "You  don't  look  well,  child." 

"Oh "    Nan  threw  her  cigarette  end  impatiently 

into  the  grate.  "I'm  all  right.  I'm  tired,  and  I've 
been  thinking  too  much.  That  never  suits  me.  .  .  . 
Thanks,  Pam.  You've  helped  me  to  make  up  my  mind. 
I  like  you,  Pam,"  she  added  dispassionately,  "because 
you're  so  gentlewomanly.  You  don't  ask  questions,  or 
pry.     Most  people  do." 


80  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"Surely  not.    Not  most  decent  people." 

"Most  people _arenJt^ecenL    You  think  they  are. 
You've  notlived  in  my  set — nor  in  Rosalind'^.     You're 
still  fresh  from  Oxford — stuck  all  over  with  Oxford 
manners   and   Oxford   codes.     You   don't   know   the^ 
raddled  gossip  who  fishes  for  your  secrets  and  then  J 
throws  them  about  for  fun,  like  tennis  balls." 

"I  know  Rosalind,  thank  you,  Nan." 

"Oh,  Rosalind's  not  the  only  one,  though  she'll  do. 
Anyhow  I've  trapped  you  into  saying  an  honest  and 
unkind  thing  about  her,  for  once;  that's  something. 
Wish  you  weren't  such  a  dear  old  fraud,  Pammie." 

Frances  Carr  came  back,  in  her  dressing  gown,  look- 
ing about  twenty-three,  her  brown  hair  in  two  plaits. 

"Pamela,  you  mustn't  sit  up  any  more.  I'm  awfully 
sorry.  Nan,  but  her  head  .  .  ." 

"Right  oh.  I'm  off.  Sorry  I've  kept  you  up,  Pam- 
mie. Good-night.  Good-night,  Frances.  Yes,  I  shall 
get  the  bus  at  the  corner.     Good-night." 

The  door  closed  after  Nan,  shutting  in  the  friends 
and  their  friendship  and  their  anchored  peace. 


Off  went  Nan  on  the  bus  at  the  corner,  whistling 
softly  into  the  night.  Like  a  bird  her  heart  rose  up  and 
sang,  at  the  lit  pageant  of  London  swinging  by.  Queer, 
fantastic,  most  lovely  life!  Sordid,  squalid,  grotesque 
life,  bitter  as  black  tea,  sour  as  stale  wine!  Glorious- 
ly funny,  brilliant  as  a  flower-bed,  bright  as  a  Sitwell 
street  in  hell — 

"(Down  in  Hell's  gilded  street 
Spr^v;  dances  fleet  and  sweet, 
Bright  as  a  parakeet.  .  .  .)" 


ROOTS  8 I 

unsteady  as  a  swing-boat,  silly  as  a  drunkard's  dream, 
tragic  as  a  poem  by  Massfield.  ...  To  have  one's  \ 
corner  in  it,  to  run  here  and  there  about  the  city,  \ 
grinning  like  a  dog — what  more  did  one  want?     Hu-   i 
man  adventures,  intellectual  adventures,  success,  even  / 
a  little  fame,  men  and  women,  jokes,  laughter  and  love,  i 
dancing  and  a  little  drink,  and  the  fields  and  mountains^ 
and  seas  beyond — what  more  did  one  want? 
C  Roots^    That  was  the  metaphor  that  had  eluded 
Nan.    To  be  rooted  and  grounded  in  life,  like  a  tree. 
Someone  had  written  something  about  that. 

"Let  your  manhood  be 
Forgotten,  your  whole  purpose  seem 
The  purpose  of  a  simple  tree 
Rooted  in  a  quiet  dream.  .  .  ," 

jRopts.  That  was  what  Neville  had,  what  Pamela 
had;  Pamela,  with  her  sensible  wisdom  that  so  often 
didn't  apply  because  Pamela  was  so  far  removed  from 
Nan's  conditions  of  life  and  Nan's  complicated,  un- 
stable temperament.  Roots.  Mrs.  Hilary's  had  been 
torn  up  out  of  the  ground.  .  .  . 

"I'm  like  mother."  That  was  Nan's  nightmare 
thought.  Not  intellectually,  for  Nan's  brain  was  sharp 
and  subtle  and  strong  and  fine,  Mrs.  Hilary's  was  an 
amorphous,  undeveloped  muddle.  But  where,  if  not 
from  Mrs.  Hilary,  did  Nan  get  her  black  fits  of  melan- 
choly, her  erratic  irresponsible  gaieties,  her  pas- 
sionate angers,  her  sharp  jealousies  and  egoisms?  The 
clever  young  woman  sav/  herself  in  the  stupid  elderly 
one;  saw  herself  slipping  down  the  years  to  that.  That 
was  v/hy,  where  Neville  and  Pamela  and  their  brothers 
pitied,  Nan,  understanding  her  mother's  bad  moods 
better  than  they,  was  vicious  with  hate  and  scorn.  For 
she  knew  these  things  through  and  through.     Not  the 


7 


82  DANGEROUS  AGES 

sentimentality;  she  didn't  know  that,  being  cynical  and 
cool  except  when  stirred  to  passion.  And  not  the  pos- 
ing, for  Nan  was  direct  and  blunt.  But  the  feverish 
angers  and  the  black  boredom — they  were  hers. 

Nevertheless  Nan's  heart  sang  into  the  night.  For 
she  had  made  up  her  mind,  and  was  at  peace. 

She  had  held  life  at  arm's  length,  pushed  it  away,  for  \ 
many  months,  hiding  from  it,  running  from  it  because  t 
she  didn't  with  the  whole  of  her,  want  it.  Again  and  ' 
again  she  had  changed  a  dangerous  subject,  headed  for  ( 
safety,  raced  for  cover.  The  week-end  before  this  last, 
down  at  Windover,  it  had  been  like  a  game  of  hide  and 
seek.  .  .  .  And  then  she  had  come  away,  without  warn- 
ing, and  he,  going  down  there  this  last  week-end,  had 
not  found  her,  because  she  couldn't  meet  him  again  till 
she  had  decided.     And  now  she  had  decided. 

How  unsuited  a  pair  they  were,  in  many  ways,  and 
what  fun  they  would  have!  Unsuited  .  .  .  what  did 
it  matter?  His  queer,  soft,  laughing  voice  was  in  her 
ears,  his  lean,  clever,  merry  face  swam  on  the  rushing 
tides  of  night.  His  untidy,  careless  clothes,  the 
pockets  bulging  with  books,  papers  and  tobacco,  his 
glasses,  that  left  a  red  mark  on  either  side  of  the  bridge 
of  his  nose,  his  easily  ruffled  brown  hair — they  all 
merged  for  her  into  the  infinitely  absurd,  infinitely  de- 
lightful, infinitely  loved  Barry,  who  was  going  to  give 
her  roots. 

She  was  going  away,  down  into  Cornwall,  in  two 
days.  She  would  stay  in  rooms  by  herself  at  Marazion 
and  finish  her  book  and  bathe  and  climb,  and  lie  in  the 
sun  (if  only  it  came  out)  and  sleep  and  eat  and  drink. 
There  was  nothing  in  the  world  like  your  own  company; 
you  could  be  purely  animal  then.  And  in  a  month 
Gerda  and  Kay  were  coming  down,  and  they  were  going 
to  bicycle  along  the  coast,  and  she  would  ask  Barry  to 


ROOTS  83 

come  too,  and  when  Barry  came  she  would  let  him  say 
what  he  liked,  with  no  more  fencing,  no  more 
cover.  Down  by  the  green  edge  of  the  Cornish  sea  they 
would  have  it  out — "grip  hard,  become  a  root  .  .  ." 
become  men  as  trees  walking,  rooted  in  a  quiet  dream. 
Dream?  No,  reality.  This  was  the  dream,  this  world 
of  slipping  shadows  and  hurrying  gleams  of  heartbreak- 
ing loveliness,  through  which  one  roamed,  a  child 
chasing  butterflies  which  ever  escaped,  or  which,  if  cap- 
tured, crum.bled  to  dust  in  one's  clutching  hands.  Oh 
for  something  strong  and  firm  to  hold.  Oh  Barry, 
Barry,  these  few  more  weeks  of  dream,  of  slipping 
golden  shadows  and  wavering  lights,  and  then  reality. 
Shall  I  write,  thought  Nan,  ''Dear  Barry,  you  may 
ask  me  to  marry  you  now."  Impossible.  Besides, 
what  hurry  was  there?  Better  to  have  these  few  more 
gay  and  lovely  weeks  of  dream.  They  would  be  the 
last. 

Has  Barry  squandered  and  spilt  his  love  about  as  I 
mine?  Likely  enough.  Likely  enough  not.  Who 
cares?  Perhaps  we  shall  tell  one  another  all  these 
things  sometime;  perhaps,  again,  we  shan't.  What 
matter?  'One  loves,  and  passes  on,  and  loves  again. 
One's  heart  cracks  and  mends;  one  cracks  the  hearts  of 
others,  and  these  mend  too.  That  is — inter  alia — v/hat 
life  is  for.  If  one  day  you  want  the  tale  of  my  life, 
Barry,  you  shall  have  it;  though  that's  not  what  life  is 
for,  to  make  a  tale  about.  So  thrilling  in  the  living,  so 
flat  and  stale  in  the  telling — oh  let's  get  on  and  live 
some  more  of  it,  lots  and  lots  more,  and  let  the  dead 
past  bury  its  dead. 

Between  a  laugh  and  a  sleepy  yawn,  Nan  jumped 
from  the  bus  at  the  corner  of  Oakley  Street. 


/ 


CHAPTER  V 

SEAWEED 


"Complexes,"  read  Mrs.  Hilary,  "are  of  all  sorts  and 
sizes."  And  there  was  a  picture  of  four  of  them  in  a 
row,  looking  like  netted  cherry  trees  whose  nets  have 
got  entangled  with  each  other.  So  that  was  what  they 
were  like.  Mrs.  Hilary  had  previously  thought  of 
them  as  being  more  of  the  nature  of  noxious  insects,  or 
fibrous  growths  with  infinite  ramifications.  Slim  young 
trees.     Not  so  bad,  then,  after  all. 

"A  complex  is  characterised,  and  its  elements  are 
bound  together  by  a  specific  emotional  tone,  experi- 
enced as  feeling  when  the  complex  is  aroused.  Apart 
from  the  mental  processes  and  corresponding  actions 
depending  on  purely  rational  mental  systems,  it  is 
through  complexes  that  the  typical  mental  process  (the 
specific  response)  works,  the  particular  complex  repre- 
senting the  particular  set  of  mental  elements  involved 
in  the  process  which  begins  with  perception  and  cog- 
nition and  ends  with  the  corresponding  conation." 

Mrs.  Hilary  read  it  three  times,  and  the  third  time 
she  understood  it,  if  possible,  less  than  the  first.  Com- 
plexes seemed  very  difficult  things,  and  she  had  never 
been  clever.  Any  of  her  children,  or  even  her  grand- 
children, would  understand  it  all  in  a  moment.  If  you 
have  such  things — and  everyone  has,  she  had  learnt — 
you  ought  to  be  able  to  understand  them.     Yet  why? 


SEAWEED  85 

You  didn't  understand  your  bodily  internal  growths; 
you  left  them  to  your  doctor.  There  were  doctors  who 
explained  your  complexes  to  you.  .  .  .  What  a  revolt- 
ing ideal  It  would  surely  make  them  worse,  not 
better.  (Mrs.  Hilary  still  vaguely  regarded  these 
growths  as  something  of  the  nature  of  cancer.) 

Sometimes  she  imagined  herself  a  patient,  interview- 
ing one  of  these  odd  doctors.  A  man  doctor,  not  a 
woman;  she  didn't  trust  woman  doctors  of  any  kind; 
she  had  always  been  thankful  that  Neville  had  given  it 
up  and  married  instead. 

"Insomnia,"  she  would  say,  in  these  imaginary  inter- 
views, because  that  was  so  easy  to  start  off  with. 

"You  have  something  on  your  mind,"  said  the  doctor. 
"You  suffer  from  depression." 

"Yes,  I  know  that.  I  was  coming  to  that.  That  is 
what  you  must  cure  for  me." 

"You  must  think  back.  .  .  .  What  is  the  earliest 
thing  you  can  remember?  Perhaps  your  baptism? 
Possibly  even  your  first  bath?     It  has  been  done.  .  .  ." 

"You  may  be  right.  I  remember  some  early  baths. 
One  of  them  may  have  been  the  first  of  all,  who  knows? 
What  of  it,  doctor?" 

But  the  doctor,  in  her  imaginings,  would  at  this  point 
only  make  notes  in  a  big  book  and  keep  silence,  as  if  lie 
had  thought  as  much.  Perhaps,  no  more  than  she,  he 
did  not  know  what  of  it. 

Mrs.  Hilary  could  hear  herself  protesting. 

"I  am  not  unhappy  because  of  my  baptism,  which, 
so  far  as  I  know,  went  off  without  a  hitch.  I  am  not 
troubled  by  my  first  bath,  nor  by  any  later  bath.  In- 
deed, indeed  you  must  believe  me,  it  is  not  that  at  all." 

"The  more  they  protest,"  the  psycho-analyst  would 
murmur,  "the  more  it  is  so."     For  that  was  what  Dr. 


86  DANGEROUS  AGES 

Freud  and  Dr.  Jung  always  said,  so  that  there  was  no 
escape  from  their  aspersions. 

"Why  do  you  think  you  are  so  often  unhappy?"  he 
would  ask  her,  to  draw  her  out  and  she  would  reply, 
"Because  my  life  is  over.  Because  I  am  an  old 
discarded  woman,  thrown  away  onto  the  dust-heap  like 
a  broken  egg-shell.  Because  my  husband  is  gone  and 
my  children  are  gone,  and  they  do  not  love  me  as  I 
love  them.  Because  I  have  only  my  mother  to  live 
with,  and  she  is  calm  and  cares  for  nothing  but  only 
waits  for  the  end.  Because  I  have  nothing  to  do  from 
morning  till  night.  Because  I  am  sixty-three,  and  that 
is  too  old  and  too  young.  Because  life  is  empty  and 
disappointing,  and  I  am  tired,  and  drift  like  seaweed 
tossed  to  and  fro  by  the  waves." 

It  sounded  indeed  enough,  and  tears  would  fill  her 
eyes  as  she  said  it.  The  psycho-analyst  would  listen, 
passive  and  sceptical  but  intelligent. 

"Not  one  of  your  reasons  is  the  correct  one.  But  I 
will  find  the  true  reason  for  you  and  expose  it,  and 
after  that  it  will  trouble  3'ou  no  more.  Now  you  shall 
relate  to  me  the  whole  history  of  your  life." 

What  a  comfortable  moment!  ]\Irs.  Hilary,  when 
she  came  to  it  in  her  imagined  interview,  v/c aid  draw  a 
deep  breath  and  settle  down  and  begin.  The  story  of 
her  life!  How  absorbing  a  thing  to  relate  to  someone 
who  really  wanted  to  hear  it!  How  far  better  than  the 
confessional — for  priests,  besides  requiring  only  those 
portions  and  parcels  of  the  dreadful  past  upon  which 
you  had  least  desire  to  dwell,  had  almost  certainly  no 
interest  at  all  in  hearing  even  these,  but  only  did  it  be- 
cause they  had  to,  and  you  would  be  boring  them. 
They  might  even  say,  as  one  had  said  to  Rosalind  dur- 
ing the  first  confession  which  had  inaugurated  her  brief 
ecclesiastical  career,  and  to  which  she  had  looked  for- 


SEAWEED  87 

ward  with  some  interest  as  a  luxurious  re-living  of  a 
stimulating  past — ''No  details,  please."  Rosalind,  who 
had  had  many  details  ready,  had  come  away  dis- 
appointed, feeling  that  the  Church  was  not  all  she 
had  hoped.  But  the  psycho-analyst  doctor  would 
really  want  to  hear  details.  Of  course  he  would 
prefer  the  kind  of  detail  which  Rosalind  would 
have  been  able  to  furnish  out  of  her  experience, 
for  that  was  what  psycho-analysts  recognised  as 
true  life.  Mrs.  Hilary's  experiences  were  pale  in 
comparison;  but  psycho-analysts  could  and  did 
make  much  out  of  little,  bricks  without  clay.  She 
would  tell  him  all  about  the  children — how  sweet  they 
were  as  babies,  how  Jim  had  nearly  died  of  croup, 
Neville  of  bronchitis  and  Nan  of  convulsions,  whereas 
Pamela  had  always  been  so  well,  and  Gilbert  had  suf- 
fered only  from  infant  debility.  She  would  relate  how 
early  and  how  unusually  they  had  all  given  signs  of  in- 
telligence; how  Jim  had  always  loved  her  more  than 
anything  in  the  world,  until  his  marriage,  and  she  him 
(this  was  a  firm  article  in  Mrs.  Hilar3'''s  creed);  how 
Neville  had  always  cherished  and  cared  for  her,  and 
how  she  loved  Neville  beyond  anything  in  the  v/orld  but 
Jim;  how  Gilbert  had  disappointed  her  by  taking  to 
writing  instead  of  to  a  man's  job,  and  then  by  marrying 
Rosalind;  hew  Nan  had  always  been  tiresome  and  per- 
verse. And  before  the  children  came — all  about 
Richard,  and  their  courtship,  and  their  3-oung  m-^trried 
life,  and  how  he  had  loved  and  cared  for  her  beyond 
anything,  incredibly  tenderly  and  well,  so  that  all  those 
who  saw  it  had  wondered,  and  some  had  said  he  spoilt 
her.  And  back  before  Richard,  to  girlhood  and  child- 
hood, to  parents  and  nursery,  to  her  brother  and  sister, 
now  dead.  How  she  had  fought  with  her  sister  be- 
cause thev  had  both  alwavs  wanted  the  same  things  and 


88  DANGEROUS  AGES 

got  in  one  another's  wayl     The  jealousies,  the  bitter, 
angry  tears  1 

To  pour  it  all  out — what  comfort!  To  feel  that -^ 
someone  was  interested,  even  though  it  might  be  only  > 
as  a  case.  The  trouble  about  most  people  was  thatS 
they  weren't  interested.  They  didn't  mostly,  even^ 
pretend  they  were. 


She  tried  Barry  Briscoe,  the  week-end  he  came  down 
and  found  Nan  gone.  Barry  Briscoe  was  by  way  of 
being  interested  in  people  and  things  in  general;  he  had 
that  kind  of  alert  mind  and  face. 

He  came  up  from  the  tennis  lawn,  where  he  had  been 
playing  a  single  with  Rodney,  and  sat  down  by  her  and 
Grandmama  in  the  shade  of  the  cedar,  hot  and  friendly 
and  laughing  and  out  of  breath.  Now  Neville  and 
Rodney  were  playing  Gerda  and  Kay.  Grandmama's 
old  eyes,  pleased  behind  their  glasses,  watched  the  balls 
fl}^  and  thought  everyone  clever  who  got  one  over  the 
net.  She  hadn't  played  tennis  in  her  youth.  Mrs. 
Hilary's  more  eager,  excited  eyes  watched  Neville 
driving,  smashing,  volleying,  returning,  and  thought 
how  slim  and  young  a  thing  she  looked,  to  have  all  that 
power  stored  in  her.  She  was  fleeter  than  Gerda,  she 
struck  harder  than  Kay,  she  was  trickier  than  all  of 
them,  the  beloved  girl.  That  was  the  way  Mrs.  Hilary 
watched  tennis,  thinking  of  the  players,  not  of  the  play. 
It  is  the  way  some  people  talk,  thinking  of  the  talkers, 
not  of  what  they  are  saying.  It  is  the  personal  touch, 
and  a  way  some  women  have. 

But  Barry  Briscoe,  watching  cleverly  through  his 
bri&'ht  glasses,  was  thinking  of  the  strokes.  He  was  an 
unconscious  person.     He  lived  in  moments. 


SEAWEED  89 

"Well  done,  Gerda,"  Grandmama  would  call,  when 
Gerda,  cool  and  nonchalant,  dropped,  a  sitter  at  Rod- 
ney's feet,  and  Vi^hen  Rodney  smashed  it  back  she  said 
**But  father's  too  much  for  you." 

"Gerda's  a  scandal"  Barry  said.  "She  doesn't  care. 
She  can  hit  all  right  when  she  likes.  She  thinks  about 
something  else  half  the  time." 

His  smile  followed  the  small  white  figure  with  its 
bare  golden  head  that  gleamed  in  the  grey  afternoon. 
An  absurd,  lovable,  teasable  child,  he  found  her. 

Grandmama's  maid  came  to  wheel  her  down  to  the 
farm.  Grandmama  had  promised  to  go  and  see  the 
farmer's  wife  and  new  baby.  Grandmama  always  saw 
wives  and  new  babies.  They  never  palled.  You 
would  think  that  by  eighty- four  she  had  seen  enough 
new  babies,  more  than  enough,  that  she  had  seen 
through  that  strange  business  and  could  now  take  it  for 
granted,  the  stream  of  funny  new  life  cascading  into 
the  already  so  full  world.  But  Grandmama  would  al- 
ways go  and  see  it,  handle  it,  admire  it,  peer  at  it  with 
her  smiling  eyes  that  had  seen  so  many  lives  come  and 
go  and  that  must  know  by  now  that  babies  are  born  to 
trouble  as  naturally  as  the  sparks  fly  upv/ard. 

So  off  Grandmama  rode  in  her  wheeled  chair,  and 
Mrs.  Hilary  and  Barry  Briscoe  were  left  alone.  Mrs. 
Hilary  and  this  pleasant,  brown,  friendly  young  man, 
who  cared  for  Workers'  Education  and  Continuation 
Schools,  and  Penal  Reform,  and  Garden  Cities,  and 
Getting  Things  Done  by  Acts  of  Parliament,  about  all 
which  things  Mrs.  Hilary  knew  and  cared  nothino;.  But 
vaguely  she  felt  that  they  sprang  out  of  and  must  in- 
clude a  care  for  human  beings  as  such,  and  that  there- 
fore Barry  Briscoe  would  listen  if  she  told  him  things. 

So  (it  came  out  of  lying  on  grass,  which  Barry  was 
doing)  she  told  him  about  the  pneumonia  of  Neville  as 


90  DANGEROUS  AGES 

a  child,  how  they  had  been  staying  in  Cornwall,  miles 
from  a  doctor,  and  without  Mr.  Hilary,  and  Mrs.  Hilary 
had  been  in  despair;  how  Jim,  a  little  chap  of  twelve, 
had  ridden  off  on  his  pony  in  the  night  to  fetch  the 
doctor,  across  the  moors.  A  long  story;  stories  about 
illnesses  always  are.  Mrs.  Hilary  got  worked  up  and 
excited  as  she  told  it;  it  came  back  to  her  so  vividly,  the 
dreadful  night. 

"He  was  a  Dr.  Chalmers,  and  so  kind.  When  he  saw 
Neville  he  was  horrified;  by  that  time  she  was  delirious. 
He  said  if  Jim  hadn't  gone  straight  to  him  but  had 
waited  till  the  morning,  it  might  have  been  too  late. . . ." 

"Too  late:  quite.  .  .  ."  Barry  Briscoe  had  an  under- 
standing, sympathetic  grip  of  one's  last  few  words.  So 
much  of  the  conversation  of  others  eludes  one,  but  one 
should  hold  fast  the  last  few  words. 

"Oh  played,  Gerda:  did  you  that  time,  Bendish.  .  .  ." 

Gerda  had  put  on,  probably  by  accident,  a  sudden, 
absurd  twist  that  had  made  a  fool  of  Rodney. 

That  was  what  Barry  Briscoe  was  really  attending  to, 
the  silly  game.     This  alert,  seemingly  interested,  at- 
tentive young  man  had  a  nice  manner,  that  led  you  on, 
but  he  didn't  really  care.     He  lived  in  the  moment:  he 
cared  for  prisoners  and  workers,  and  probably  for 
people  who  were  ill  now,  but  not  that  someone  had  been 
ill  all  those  years  ago.     He  only  pretended  to  care;  he 
was  polite.     He  turned  his  keen,  pleasant  face  up  to  her 
when  he  had  done  shouting  about  the  game,  and  said 
"How  splendid  that  he  got  to  you  in  time!"  but  he 
didn't  really  care.     Mrs.  Hilary  found  that  women  were^ 
better  listeners  than  men.     Women  are  perhaps  better  f 
trained;  they  think  it  more  ill-mannered  not  to  show  ( 
interest.     They  wil)  listen  to  stories  about  servants,  or  ; 
reports  of  the  inane  savings  of  infants,  they  vaD  hear 
you  through,  without  the  flicker  of  a  yawn,  but  with 


SEAWEED  91 

ejaculations  and  noddings,  while  you  tell  them  about 
your  children's  diseases.  They  are  well-bred;  they 
drive  themselves  on  a  tight  rein,  and  endure.  They  are 
the  world's  martyrs. 

But  men,  less  restrained,  will  fidget  and  wander  and 
sigh  and  yawn,  and  change  the  subject. 
/'  To  trap  and  hold  the  sympathy  of  a  man — how 
(^wonderful!  Who  wanted  a  pack  of  women?  What 
you  really  wanted  was  some  man  whose  trade  it  was 
to  listen  and  to  give  heed.  Some  man  to  whom  your 
daughter's  pneumonia,  of  however  long  ago,  was  not 
irrelevant,  but  had  its  own  significance,  as  having 
helped  to  build  you  up  as  you  were,  you,  the  problem, 
with  your  wonderful,  puzzling  temperament,  so  full  of 
complexes,  inconsistencies  and  needs.  Some  man  who 
didn't  lose  interest  in  you  just  because  you  were  grey- 
haired  and  sixty-three. 

"I'm  afraid  I've  been  taking  your  attention  from  the 
game,"  said  IMrs.  Hilary  to  Barry  Briscoe. 

Compunction  stabbed  him.  Had  he  been  rude  to 
this  elderly  lady,  who  had  been  telling  him  a  long  tale 
without  a  point  while  he  w^atched  the  tennis  and  made 
poIit3,  attentive  sounds? 

"Not  a  bit,  Mrs.  Hilary."  He  sat  up,  and  looked 
friendlier  than  ever.  "I've  been  thrilled."  A  charm- 
ing, easy  liar  Barry  was,  when  he  deemed  it  necessary. 
His  Quaker  parents  would  have  been  shocked.  But 
there  was  truth  in  it,  after  all.  For  people  were  so 
interested  in  themselves,  that  one  was,  in  a  sense,  in- 
terested in  the  stories  they  told  one,  even  stories  about 
illness.  Besides,  this  was  the  mother  of  Xr.n;  Nan, 
who  was  so  abruptly  and  inexplicably  not  here  to-day, 
whose  abserxe  was  hurting  him,  when  he  stopped  to 
think,  like  an  aching  tooth;  for  he  was  not  sure,  yet 
feared,  v/hat  she  meant  bv  it. 


92  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"Tell  me,"  he  said,  half  to  please  Nan's  mother  and 
half  on  his  own  account,  "some  stories  of  Nan  when  she 
was  small.    I  should  think  she  was  a  fearful  child. . .  J* 

He  was  interested,  thought  Mrs.  Hilary,  in  Nan,  bit  \ 
not  in  her.    That  was  natural,  of  course.    iNo  man 
would  ever  again  want  to  hear  stories  of  her  childhood.  ) 
The  familiar  bitterness  rose  and  beat  in  her  like  a  wave. ' 
Nan  was  thirty- four  and  she  was  sixty-three.    She  could  , 
talk  only  of  far-off  things,  and  theories  about  conduct 
and  life  which  sounded  all  right  at  first  but  were  ex- 
posed after  two  minutes  as  not  having  behind  them  the 
background  of  any  knowledge  or  any  brain.     That 
hadn't  mattered  when  she  was  a  girl ;  men  would  often  ' 
rather  they  hadn't.     But  at  sixty-three  you  have  noth- 
ing. .  .  .  The  bitter  emptiness  of  sixty-three  turned 
her  sick  with  frustration.     Life  was  over,  over,  over, 
for  her  and  she  was  to  tell  stories  of  Nan,  who  had  ; 
everything. 

Then  the  mother  in  her  rose  up,  to  claim  and  grasp 
for  her  child,  even  for  the  child  she  loved  least. 

"Nan?  Nan  was  always  a  most  dreadfully  sensitive 
child,  and  temperamental.  She  took  after  me,  I'm 
afraid;  the  others  were  more  like  their  father.  I  re- 
member when  she  was  quite  a  little  thing.  .  .  ." 

Barry  had  asked  for  it.  But  he  hadn't  known  that, 
out  of  the  brilliant,  uncertain  Nan,  exciting  as  a  Punch 
and  Judy  show,  anything  so  tedious  could  be  spun.  .  .  . 


Mrs.  Hilary  was  up  in  town  by  herself  for  a  day's 
shopping.  The  sales  were  on  at  Barker's  and  Derry 
and  Tom's.  Mrs.  Hilary  wandered  about  these  shops, 
and  even  Ponting's  and  bought  little  bags,  and  presents 
for  everyone,  remnants,  oddments,  underwear,  some 


SEAWEED  93 

green  silk  for  a  frock  for  Gerda,  a  shady  hat  for  her- 
self, a  wonderful  cushion  for  Grandmama  with  a  picture 
of  the  sea  on  it,  a  silk  knitted  jumper  for  Neville,  of  the 
same  purplish  blue  as  her  ej'^es.  She  was  happy,  going 
about  like  a  bee  from  flower  to  flower,  gathering  this 
honey  for  them  all.  She  had  come  up  alone;  she 
hadn't  let  Neville  come  with  her.  She  had  said  she 
was  going  to  be  an  independent  old  woman.  But  what 
she  really  meant  was  that  she  had  proposed  herself  for 
tea  with  Rosalind  in  Campden  Hill  Square,  and  wanted 
to  be  alone  for  that. 

Rosalind  had  been  surprised,  for  Mrs.  Hilary  seldom 
favoured  her  with  a  visit.  She  had  found  the  letter  on 
the  hall  table  when  she  and  Gilbert  had  come  in  from 
a  dinner  party  two  evenings  ago. 

''Your  mother's  coming  to  tea  on  Thursday,  Gilbert. 
Tea  with  me.  She  says  she  wants  a  talk.  I  feel 
flattered.  She  says  nothing  about  wanting  to  see  you, 
so  you'd  better  leave  us  alone,  anyhow  for  a  bit." 

Rosalind's  beautiful  bistre-brown  eyes  smiled.  She 
enjoyed  her  talks  with  her  mother-in-law;  they  fur- 
nished her  with  excellent  material,  to  be  worked  up 
later  by  the  raconteuse's  art  into  something  too  deli- 
cious and  absurd.  She  enjoyed,  too,  telling  Mrs.  Hilary 
the  latest  scandals;  she  was  so  shocked  and  disgusted; 
and  it  was  fun  dropping  little  accidental  hints  about 
Nan,  and  even  about  Gilbert.  Anyhow,  what  a 
treasure  of  a  relic  of  the  Victorian  age!  And  how 
comic  in  her  jealousy,  her  ingenuous,  futile  boasting, 
her  so  readily  exposed  deceits!  And  how  she  hated 
Rosalind  herself,  the  painted,  corrupt  woman  who  was 
dragging  Gilbert  down ! 

''Whatever  docs  she  want  a  talk  about?"  Rosalind 
wondered.  "It  must  be  something  pretty  urgent,  to 
make  her  put  up  with  an  hour  of  my  company," 


94  DANGEROUS  AGES 


At  four  o'clock  on  Thursday  afternoon  Rosalind 
went  upstairs  and  put  on  an  extra  coating  of  powder 
and  rouge.  She  also  blackened  her  eyelashes  and  put 
on  her  lips  salve  the  colour  of  strawberries  rather  than 
of  the  human  mouth.  She  wore  an  afternoon  dress 
with  transparent  black  sleeves  through  which  her  big 
arms  gleamed,  pale  and  smooth.  She  looked  a  superb 
and  altogether  improper  creature,  like  Lucrezia  Borgia 
or  a  Titian  madonna.  She  came  down  and  lay  among 
great  black  and  gold  satin  cushions,  and  lit  a  scented 
cigarette  and  opened  a  new  French  novel.  Black  and 
gold  was  her  new  scheme  for  her  drawing-room;  she 
had  had  it  done  this  spring.  It  had  a  sort  of  opulent 
and  rakish  violence  which  sailed  her  ripe  m?.gnificence, 
her  splendid  flesh  tints,  her  brown  eyes  and  corn-gold 
hair.  Against  it  she  looked  like  Messalina,  and  Gilbert 
like  rather  a  decadent  and  cynical  pope.  The  note  of 
the  room  was  really  too  pronounced  for  Gilbert's 
fastidious  and  scholarly  eloquence;  he  lest  vitality  in  it, 
and  dwindled  to  the  pale  thin  casket  of  a  brain. 

And  ]\Irs.  Hilar}/,  when  she  entered  it,  trailing  in,  tall 
and  thin,  in  her  sagging  grey  coat  and  skirt,  her  wispy 
grey  hair  escaping  from  under  her  floppy  black  hat,  and 
with  the  air  of  having  till  a  moment  ago  been  hung 
about  with  parcels  (she  had  left  them  in  the  hall), 
looked  altogether  unsuitcd  to  her  environment,  like  a 
dowdy  lady  from  the  provinces,  as  she  was. 

Rosalind  cams  forward  and  took  her  by  the  hands. 

"Well,  mother  dear,  this  is  an  unusual  honour.  .  .  . 
How  long  is  it  since  we  last  had  3'"ou  here?" 

Rosalind,  enveloping  her  motlier-in-Iaw  in  extrava- 
gant fragrance,  kissed  her  on  each  cheek.     The  kiss  of 


SEAWEED  95 

Messalina!  Mrs.  Hilary  glanced  at  the  great  mirror 
over  the  fireplace  to  see  whether  it  had  come  off  on 
her  cheeks,  as  it  might  well  have  done. 

Rosalind  placed  her  on  a  swelling,  billowy,  black  and 
gold  chair,  piled  cushions  behind  her  shoulders,  made 
her  lie  back  at  an  obtuse  angle,  a  grey,  lank,  elderly 
figure,  strange  in  that  opulent  setting,  her  long  dusty 
black  feet  stretched  out  before  her  on  the  golden  carpet. 

Desperately  uncomfortable  and  angular  Rosalind 
made  you  feel,  petting  you  and  purring  over  you  and 
calling  you  "mother  dear,"  with  that  glint  always  be- 
hind her  golden-brown  eyes  which  showed  that  she  was 
up  to  no  good,  that  she  knew  j^ou  hated  her  and  was 
only  leading  you  on  that  she  might  strike  her  claws 
into  you  the  deeper.  The  great  beautiful  cat:  that  was 
what  Rosalind  was.  You  didn't  trust  her  for  a 
mom.ent. 

She  was  pouring  out  tea. 

"Lemon?  But  how  dreadfully  stupid  of  me!  I'd 
forgotten  you  take  milk  ...  oh  yes,  and  sugar.  .  .  ." 

She  rang,  and  ordered  sugar.     Mothers  take  it;  not7 
the  mothers  of  Rosalind's  world,  but  mothers'  meetings/ 
and  school  treats,  and  mothers-in-law  up  from  the  sea-  ! 
side. 

"Are  you  up  for  shopping?  How  thrilling!  Where 
have  you  been?  .  .  .  Oh,  High  Street.  Did  you  find 
anything  there?" 

Mrs.  Hilary  knew  that  Rosalind  would  see  her  off, 
hung  over  with  dozens  of  parcels,  and  despise  them, 
knowing  that  if  they  were  so  many  they  must  also  be 
cheap. 

"Oh,  there's  not  much  to  be  got  there,  of  course,"  she 
said.  "I  got  a  few  little  thinr^s — chiefly  for  my  mother 
to  give  away  in  the  parish.     She  likes  to  have  things. 


96  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"But  how  noble  of  you  both!  I'm  afraid  I  never  rise 
to  that.  It's  all  I  can  manage  to  give  presents  to  my- 
self and  nearest  rellies.  And  you  came  up  to  town  just 
to  get  presents  for  the  parish!  You're  wonderful, 
mother ! " 

"Oh,  I  take  a  day  in  town  now  and  then.  Why  not? 
Everyone  does." 

Extraordinary  how  defiant  Rosalind  made  one  feel, 
prying  and  questioning  and  trying  to  make  one  look 
absurd. 

"Why,  of  course!  It  freshens  you  up,  I  expect; 
makes  a  change.  .  .  .  But  you've  come  up  from  Wind- 
over,  haven't  you,  not  the  seaside?" 

Rosalind  always  called  St.  x\Iary's  Bay  the  seaside. 
To  her  our  island  coasts  were  all  one;  the  seaside  was 
where  you  went  to  bathe,  and  she  hardly  distinguished 
between  north,  south,  east  and  west. 

"How  are  they  down  at  Windover?  I  heard  that 
Nan  was  there,  with  that  young  man  of  hers  who  per- 
forms good  works.  So  unlike  Nan  herself!  I  hope 
she  isn't  going  to  be  so  silly  as  to  let  it  come  to  any- 
thing; they'd  both  be  miserable.  But  I  should  think 
Nan  knows  better  than  to  marry  a  square-toes.  I 
daresay  he  knows  better  too,  really.  .  .  .  And  how's 
poor  old  Neville?  I  think  this  doctoring  game  of  hers 
is  simply  a  scream,  the  poor  old  dear." 

To  hear  Rosalind  discussing  Neville.  .  .  .  Messalina 
coarsely  patronising  a  wood-nymph  .  .  .  the  cat  strik- 
ing her  claws  into  a  singing  bird.  .  .  .  And  poor — and 
old!  Neville  was,  indeed,  six  years  ahead  of  Rosalind, 
but  she  looked  the  younger  of  the  two,  in  her  slim 
activity,  and  didn't  need  to  paint  her  face  either.  Mrs. 
Hilary  all  but  said  so. 

"It  is  a  great  interest  to  Neville,  taking  up  her  medi- 
cal studies  again,"  was  all  she  could  reall}^  say.    (What 


SEAWEED  97 

a  hampering  thing  it  is  to  be  a  lady! )  "She  thorough- 
ly enjoys  it,  and  looks  younger  than  ever.  She  is  play- 
ing a  lot  of  tennis,  and  beats  them  all." 

How  absurdly  her  voice  rang  when  she  spoke  of 
Neville  or  Jim!  It  always  made  Rosalind's  lip  curl 
mockingly. 

"Wonderful  creature!  I  do  admire  her.  When  I'm 
her  age  I  shall  be  too  fat  to  take  any  exercise  at  all. 
I  think  it's  splendid  of  women  who  keep  it  up  through 
the  forties.  .  .  .  She  won't  be  bored,  even  when  she's 
sixty,  will  she?" 

That  was  a  direct  hit,  which  Mrs.  Hilary  could  bear 
better  than  hits  at  Neville. 

"I  see  no  reason,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  "why  Neville 
should  ever  be  bored.  She  has  a  husband  and  children. 
Long  before  she  is  sixty  she  will  have  Kay's  and 
Gerda's  children  to  be  interested  in." 

"No,  I  suppose  one  can't  well  be  bored  if  one  has 
grandchildren,  can  one,"  Rosalind  said,  reflectivel}^ 

There  was  a  silence,  during  which  Mrs.  Hilary's  eyes, 
coldly  meeting  Rosalind's  with  their  satirical  comment, 
said  "I  know  you  are  too  selfish  a  woman  ever  to  bear 
children,  and  I  thank  God  for  it.  Little  Hilarys  who 
should  be  half  yours  w^ould  be  more  than  I  could  en- 
dure." 

Rosalind,  quite  understanding,  smiled  her  slow,  full- 
mouthed,  curling  smile,  and  held  out  to  her  mother-in- 
law  the  gold  case  with  scented  cigarettes. 

"Oh  no,  you  don't,  do  you.  I  never  can  remember 
that.     It's  so  unusual." 

Her  eyes  travelled  over  Mrs.  Hilary,  from  her  dusty 
black  shoes  to  her  pale,  lined  face.  They  put  her,  with 
deliberation,  into  the  class  with  companions,  house- 
keepers, poor  relations.  Having  successfully  done  that 
(she  knew  it  was  successful,  by  IMrs.  Hilary's  faint 


98  DANGEROUS  AGES 

flush)  she  said  "You  don't  look  up  to  much,  mother 
dear.  Not  as  if  Neville  had  been  looking  after  you 
very  well." 

Mrs.  Hilary,  seeing  her  chance,  swallowed  her  nat- 
ural feelings  and  took  it. 

"The  fact  is,  I  sleep  very  badly.  Not  particularly 
just  now,  but  always.  ...  I  thought  .  .  .  That  is, 
someone  told  me  .  .  .  that  there  have  been  wonderful 
cures  for  insomnia  lately  .  .  .  through  that  new 
thing.  .  .  ." 

"Which  new  thing?  Sedobrol?  Paraldehyd?  Gil- 
bert keeps  getting  absurd  powders  and  tablets  of  all 
sorts.    Thank  God,  I  always  sleep  like  a  top." 

"No,  not  those.  The  thing  you  practice.  Psycho- 
iinalysis,  I  mean." 

"Oh,  psycho.  But  you  wouldn't  touch  that,  surely? 
I  thought  it  was  anathema." 

"But  if  it  really  doss  cure  people.  .  .  ." 

Rosalind's  eyes  glittered  and  gleamed.  Her  straw- 
berry-red mouth  curled  joyfully. 

'■'Of  course  it  has.  .  .  .  Not  that  insomnia  is  always 
a  case  for  psycho,  you  know.  It's  sometimes  incipient 
mania." 

"Not  in  my  case."    Mrs.  Hilary  spoke  sharply. 

"Why  no,  of  course  not.  .  .  .  Well,  I  think  you'd 
be  awfully  wise  to  get  analysed.  Whom  do  you  want 
to  go  to?" 

"I  thought  you  could  tell  me.  I  know  no  names. 
...  A  man,"  Mrs.  Hilary  added  quickly. 

"Oh,  it  must  be  a  man?  I  was  going  to  say,  I've  a 
vacancy  myself  for  a  patient.  But  vvomen  usually  want 
men  doctors.  They  nearly  all  do.  It's  supposed  to 
be  part  of  the  complaint.  ,  .  .  Well.  I  could  fix  you 
up  a  preliminary  interview  with  Di,  Claude  Evans. 
He's  very  good.     He  turns  you  right  inside  out  and 


SEAWEED  99 

shows  you  everything  about  yourself,  from  your  first 
infant  passion  to  the  thoughts  you  think  you're  keep- 
ing dark  from  him  as  you  sit  in  the  consulting  room. 
He's  great." 

Mrs.  Hilary  was  flushed.  Hope  and  shame  tingled 
in  her  together. 

"I  shan't  want  to  keep  anything  dark.  I've  no 
reason." 

Rosalind's  mocking  eyes  said  "That's  what  they  all 
say."  Her  lips  said  "The  foreconscious  self  always  has 
its  reasons  for  hiding  up  the  things  the  unconscious 
self  knows  and  feels." 

"Oh,  all  that  stuff.  .  .  ."  Mrs.  Hilary  was  sick  of  it, 
having  read  too  much  about  it  in  "The  Breath  of  Life." 
"I  hope  this  Dr.  Evans  will  talk  to  me  in  plain  English, 
not  in  that  affected  jargon." 

"He'll  use  language  suited  to  you,  I  suppose,"  said 
Rosalind,  "as  far  as  he  can.  But  these  things  can't 
always  be  put  so  that  just  anyone  can  grasp  them. 
They're  too  complicated.  You  should  read  it  up  be- 
forehand, and  try  if  you  can  understand  it  a  little." 

Rosalind,  who  had  no  brains  herself,  insulting  Mrs. 
Hilary's,  was  rather  more  than  Mrs.  Hilary  could  bear. 
Rosalind  she  knew  for  a  fool,  so  far  as  intellectual  mat- 
ters went,  for  Nan  had  said  so.  Clever  enough  at 
clothes,  and  talking  scandal,  and  winning  money  at 
games,  and  skating  over  thin  ice  without  going  through 
— but  when  it  came  to  a  book,  or  an  idea,  or  a  political 
question,  Rosalind  was  no  whit  more  intelligent  than 
she  was,  in  fact  much  less.  She  was  a  rotten  psycho- 
analyst, all  her  in-laws  were  sure. 

Mrs.  Hilary  said,  "I've  been  reading  a  good  deal 
about  it  lately.  It  doesn't  seem  to  me  very  difficult, 
though  exceedingly  foolish  in  parts." 

Rosalind  was  touchy  about  psycho-analysis;  she  al- 


100  DANGEROUS  AGES 

ways  got  angry  if  people  said  it  was  foolish  in  any  way. 
She  was  like  that;  she  could  see  no  weak  points  in"^ 
anything  she  took  up;  it  came  from  being  vain,  and  / 
not  having  a  brain.    She  said  one  of  the  things  angry 
people  say,  instead  of  discussing  the  subject  rationally. 

"I  don't  suppose  the  amount  of  it  you've  been  able 
to  read  would  seem  difficult.  If  you  came  to  anything 
difficult  you'd  probably  stop,  you  see.  Anyhow,  if  it 
seems  to  you  so  foolish  why  do  you  want  to  be 
analysed?" 

"Oh,  one  may  as  well  try  things.  I've  no  doubt 
there's  something  in  it  besides  the  nonsense." 

Mrs.  Hilary  spoke  jauntily,  with  hungry,  unquiet, 
seeking  eyes  that  would  not  meet  Rosalind's.  She  was 
afraid  that  Rosalind  would  find  out  that  she  wanted 
to  be  cured  of  being  miserable,  of  being  jealous,  of 
having  inordinate  passions  about  so  little,  Rosalind, 
in  some  ways  a  great  stupid  cow,  was  uncannily  clever 
when  it  came  to  being  spiteful  and  knowing  about  you 
the  things  you  didn't  want  known.  It  must  be  horrible 
to  be  psycho-analysed  by  Rosalind,  who  had  no  pity 
and  no  reticence.  The  things  about  you  would  not  only 
be  known  but  spread  abroad  among  all  those  whom 
Rosalind  met.    A  vile,  dreadful  tongue. 

"You  wouldn't,  I  expect,  like  me  to  analyse  you," 
said  Rosalind.  "Not  a  course^  I  mean,  but  just  once, 
to  advise  you  better  whom  to  go  to.  It'd  have  the  ad- 
vantage, anyhow,  that  I'd  do  it  free.  Anyone  else  will 
charge  you  three  guineas  at  the  least." 

"I  don't  think,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  "that  relations — 
or  connections — ought  to  do  one  another.  No,  I'd 
better  go  to  someone  I  don't  know,  if  you'll  give  me 
the  name  and  address." 

"I  thought  you'd  probably  rather,"  Rosalind  said. 
in  her  slow,  soft,  cruel  voice,  like  a  cat's  purr.    "Well, 


SEAWEED  loi 

I'll  write  down  the  address  for  you.  It's  Dr.  Evans: 
he'll  probably  pass  you  on  to  someone  down  at  the  sea- 
side, if  he  considers  you  a  suitable  case  for  treatment." 
He  would;  of  course  he  would.  Mrs.  Hilary  felt  no 
doubt  as  to  that. 

Gilbert  came  in  from  the  British  Museum.  He 
looked  thin  and  nervous  and  sallow  amid  all  the  splen- 
dour. He  kissed  his  mother,  thinking  how  queer  and 
untidy  she  looked,  a  stranger  and  pilgrim  in  Rosalind's 
drawing-room.  He  too  might  look  there  at  times  a 
stranger  and  pilgrim,  but  at  least,  if  not  voluptuous,  he 
was  neat.  He  glanced  proudly  and  yet  ironically  from 
his  mother  to  his  magnificent  wife,  taking  in  and  under- 
standing the  supra-normal  redundancies  of  her  make- 
up. 

"Rosalind,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  knowing  that  it  would 
be  less  than  useless  to  ask  Rosalind  to  keep  her  secret, 
"has  been  recommending  me  a  psycho-analyst  doctor. 
I  think  it  is  worth  while  trying  if  I  can  get  my  in- 
somnia cured  that  way." 

"My  dear  mother!  After  all  your  fulminations 
against  the  tribe!  Well,  I  think  you're  quite  right 
to  give  it  a  trial.  \Miy  don't  you  get  Rosalind  to  take 
you  on?" 

The  fond  pride  in  his  voice!  Yet  there  was  in  his 
eyes,  as  they  rested  for  a  moment  on  Rosalind,  some- 
thing other  than  fond  pride;  something  more  like 
mockery. 

Mrs.  Hilary  got  up  to  go,  and  fired  across  the  rich 
room  the  one  shot  in  her  armoury. 

"I  believe,"  she  said,  "that  Rosalind  prefers  chiefly 
to  take  men  patients.  She  wouldn't  want  to  be  bored 
with  an  old  woman." 

The  shot  drove  straight  into  Gilbert's  light-strung 
sensitiveness.     Shell-shocked  officers;    anv  other  ofii- 


102  DANGEROUS  AGES 

cers;  anything  male,  presentable  and  passably  young; 
these  were  Rosalind's  patients;  he  knew  it,  and  every- 
one else  knew  it.  For  a  moment  his  smile  was  fixed 
into  the  deliberate  grin  of  pain.  Mrs.  Hilary  saw  it, 
saw  Gilbert  far  back  down  the  years,  a  small  boy 
standing  up  to  punishment  with  just  that  brave,  nervous 
grin.  Sensitive,  defiant,  vulnerable,  fastidiously  proud 
— so  Gilbert  had  always  been  and  always  would  be. 

Remorsefully  she  clung  to  him. 

"Come  and  see  me  out,  dearest  boy"  (so  she  called 
him,  though  Jim  was  really  that) — and  she  ignored 
Rosalind's  slow,  unconcerned  protest  against  her  last  re- 
mark. "Why,  mother,  you  know  I  asked  to  do  you" 
.  .  .  but  she  couldn't  prevent  Rosalind  from  seeing 
her  out  too,  hanging  her  about,  with  all  the  ridiculous 
parcels,  kissing  her  on  both  cheeks. 

Gilbert  was  cool  and  dry,  pretending  she  hadn't  hurt 
him.  He  would  always  take  hurts  like  that,  with  that 
deadly,  steely  lightness.  By  its  deadliness,  its  steeli- 
ness,  she  knew  that  it  was  all  true  (and  much  more 
besides)  that  she  had  heard  about  Rosalind  and  her 
patients. 


She  walked  down  to  the  bus  with  hot  eyes.  Rosalind 
had  yawned  softly  and  largely  behind  her  as  she  went 
down  the  front  steps.  Wicked,  monstrous  creature! 
Lying  about  Gilbert's  clever,  nervous,  eager  life  in 
great  soft  folds,  and  throttling  it.  If  Gilbert  had  been 
a  man,  a  real  male  man,  instead  of  a  writer  and  there- 
fore effeminate,  decadent,  he  would  have  beaten  her 
into  decent  behaviour.  As  it  was  she  would  ruin  him, 
and  he  would  go  under,  not  able  to  bear  it,  but  cynically 
grinning  still.     Perhaps  the  sooner  the  better.     Any- 


SEAWEED  103 

thing  was  better  than  the  way  Rosalind  went  on  now, 
disgracing  him  and  getting  talked  about,  and  making 
him  hate  his  mother  for  disliking  her.  He  hadn't  even 
come  with  her  to  the  bus,  to  carry  her  parcels  for  her. 
.  .  .  That  wasn't  like  Gilbert.  As  a  rule  he  had  excel- 
lent manners,  though  he  was  not  affectionate  like  Jim. 

Jim,  Jim,  Jim.  Should  she  go  to  Harley  Street? 
What  was  the  use?  She  would  find  only  Margery 
there;  Jim  would  be  out.  Margery  had  no  serious 
faults  except  the  one,  that  she  had  taken  the  first  place 
in  Jim's  affections.  Before  Margery,  Neville  had  had 
this  place,  but  Mrs.  Hilary  had  been  able,  with  Neville's 
never  failing  and  skilful  help,  to  disguise  this  from  her- 
self. You  can't  disguise  a  wife's  place  in  her  husband's  ; 
heart.  And  Jim's  splendid  children  too,  whom  she 
adored — they  looked  at  her  with  Margery's  brown  eyes 
instead  of  Jim's  grey-blue  ones.  And  they  preferred 
really  (she  knew  it)  their  maternal  grandmother,  the 
jolly  lady  who  took  them  to  the  theatres. 

Mrs.  Hilary  passed  a  church.    Religion.    Some  peo-^ 
pie  found  help  there.    But  it  required  so  much  of  you,  1 
was  so  exhausting  in  its  demands.    Besides,  it  seemed  | 
infinitely  far  away — an  improbable,  sad,  remote  thing, 
that  gave  you  no  human  comfort.    Psycho-analysis  was 
better;  that  opened  gates  into  a  new  life.    "Know  thy- 
L  self,"  Mrs.  Hilary  murmured,  kindling  at  the  prospect. 
/"^Most  knowledge  was  dull,  but  never  that. 

"I  will  ring  up  from  Waterloo  and  make  an  appoint- 
ment," she  thought. 


CHAPTER  VI 

JIM 


The  psycho-analyst  doctor  was  little  and  dark  and 
while  he  was  talking  he  looked  not  at  Mrs.  Hilary 
but  down  at  a  paper  whereon  he  drew  or  wrote  some- 
thing she  tried  to  see  and  couldn't.  She  came  to  the 
conclusion  after  a  time  that  he  was  merely  scribbhng 
for  effect. 

"Insomnia,"  he  said.  "Yes.  You  know  what  that 
means?" 

She  said,  foolishly,  "That  I  can't  sleep,"  and  he 
gave  her  a  glance  of  contempt  and  returned  to  his 
scribbling. 

"It  means,"  he  told  her,  "that  you  are  afraid  of 
dreaming.  Your  unconscious  self  won't  let  you  sleep. 
.  ,  .  Do  you  often  recall  your  dreams  when  you 
wake?" 

"Sometimes." 

"Tell  me  some  of  them,  please." 

''Oh,  the  usual  things,  I  suppose.  Packing;  miss- 
ing trains;  meeting  people;  and  just  nonsense  that 
means  nothing.  All  the  usual  things,  that  everyone 
dreams  about." 

At  each  thing  she  said  he  nodded,  and  scribbled 
with  his  pencil.  "Quite,"  he  said,  "quite.  They're 
bad   enough    in    meaning,    the   dreams   you've    men- 

104 


JIM  105 

tioned.  I  don't  suppose  you'd  care  at  present  to  hear 
what  they  symbolise.  .  .  .  The  dreams  you  haven't 
mentioned  are  doubtless  worse.  And  these  you  don't 
even  recall  are  worst  of  ail.  Your  unconscious  is, 
very  naturally  and  properly,  frightened  of  them.  .  .  . 
Well,  we  must  end  all  that,  or  you'll  never  sleep  as 
you  should.  Psycho-analysis  will  cure  these  dreams; 
first  it  will  make  you  remember  them,  then  you'll  talk 
them  out  and  get  rid  of  them." 

"Dreams,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary.  "Well,  they  may  be 
important.    But  it's  my  whole  life.  .  .  ." 

"Precisely.  I  was  coming  to  that.  Of  course  you 
can't  cure  sleeplessness  until  you  have  cured  the  funda- 
mental things  that  are  wrong  with  your  life.  Now,  if 
you  please,  tell  me  all  you  can  about  yourself." 

Here  was  the  wonderful  moment.  Mrs.  Hilary  drew 
a  long  breath,  and  told  him.  A  horrid  (she  felt  that 
somehow  he  was  rather  horrid)  little  man  with  furtive 
eyes  that  wouldn't  meet  hers — (and  he  wasn't  quite  a 
gentleman,  either,  but  still,  he  wanted  to  hear  all  about 
her)  he  was  listening  attentively,  drinking  it  in.  Not 
watching  tennis  while  she  talked,  like  Barry  Briscoe 
in  the  garden.  Ah,  she  could  go  on  and  on,  never  tired; 
it  was  like  swimming  in  warm  water. 

He  would  interrupt  her  with  questions.  Which  had 
she  preferred,  her  father  or  her  mother?  Well,  per- 
haps on  the  whole  her  father.  He  nodded;  that  was 
the  right  answer;  the  other  he  would  have  quietly  put 
aside  as  one  of  the  deliberate  inaccuracies  so  frequently 
practised  by  his  patients.  "You  can  leave  out  the 
perhaps.  There's  no  manner  of  doubt  about  it,  you 
know."  Lest  he  should  say  (instead  of  only  looking 
it)  that  she  had  been  in  love  with  her  good  father  and 
he  with  her,  INIrs.  Hilary  hurried  on.  She  had  a  chaste 
mind,  and  knew  what  these  Freudians  were.    It  would. 


io6  DANGEROUS  AGES 

she  thought  (not  knowing  her  doctor  and  how  it  would 
have  come  to  the  same  thing,  only  he  would  have 
thought  her  a  more  pronounced  case,  because  of  the 
deception),  have  been  wiser  to  have  said  that  she  had 
preferred  her  mother,  but  less  truthful,  and  what  she 
was  enjoying  now  was  an  orgy  of  truth-telling.  She 
got  on  to  her  marriage,  and  how  intensely  Richard  had 
loved  her.  He  tried  for  a  moment  to  be  indecent  about 
love  and  marriage,  but  in  her  deep  excitement  she 
hardly  noticed  him,  but  swept  on  to  the  births  of  the 
children,  and  Jim's  croup. 

"I  see,"  he  said  presently,  "that  you  prefer  to  avoid 
discussing  certain  aspects  of  life.  You  obviously  have 
a  sex  complex," 

"Of  course,  of  course.  Don't  you  find  that  in  all 
your  patients?  Surely  we  may  take  that  for  granted. 
.  .  ."  She  allowed  him  his  sex  complex,  knowing  that 
Freudians  without  it  would  be  like  children  deprived 
of  a  precious  toy;  for  her  part  she  was  impatient  to 
get  back  to  Jim,  her  life's  chief  passion.  The  (Edipus 
complex,  of  course  he  would  say  it  was;  what  matter, 
if  he  would  let  her  talk  about  it?  And  Neville.  It 
was  strange  to  have  a  jealous  passion  for  one's  daugh- 
ter. But  that  would,  he  said,  be  an  extension  of  the 
ego  complex — quite  simple  really. 

She  came  to  the  present. 

"I  feel  that  life  has  used  me  up  and  flung  me  aside 
like  a  broken  tool.  I  have  no  further  relation  to  life, 
nor  it  to  me.  I  have  spent  myself  and  been  spent,  and 
now  I  am  bankrupt.    Can  you  make  me  solvent  again?" 

She  liked  that  as  she  said  it. 

He  scribbled  away,  like  a  mouse  scrabbling. 

"Yes.  Oh  yes.  There  is  no  manner  of  doubt  about 
it.    None  whatever.    If  you  are  perfectly  frank,  you 


JIM  107 

can  be  cured.  You  can  be  adjusted  to  life.  Every 
age  in  human  life  has  its  own  adjustment  to  make,  its 
own  relation  to  its  environment  to  establish.  All  that 
repressed  libido  must  be  released  and  diverted.  .  .  . 
You  have  some  bad  complexes,  which  must  be  sub- 
limated. .  .  ." 

It  sounded  awful,  the  firm  way  he  said  it,  like  teeth 
or  appendixes  which  must  be  extracted.  But  Mrs. 
Hilary  knew  it  wouldn't  be  like  that  really,  but  de- 
lightful and  luxurious,  more  like  a  Turkish  bath. 

"You  must  have  a  course,"  he  told  her.  ''You  are 
an  obvious  case  for  a  course  of  treatment.  St.  Mary's 
Bay?  Excellent.  There  is  a  practising  psycho-analyst 
there  now.  You  should  have  an  hour's  treatment  twice 
a  week,  to  be  really  effective.  .  .  .  You  would  prefer  a 
man,  I  take  it?" 

He  shot  his  eyes  at  her  for  a  moment,  in  statement, 
not  in  enquiry.  Well  he  knew  how  much  she  would 
prefer  a  man.  She  murmured  assent.  He  rose.  The 
hour  was  over. 

"How  much  will  the  course  be?"  she  asked. 

"A  guinea  an  hour,  Dr.  Cradock  charges.  He  is  very 
cheap," 

"Yes,  I  see.    I  must  think  it  over.    And  you?" 

He  told  her  his  fee,  and  she  blenched,  but  paid  it. 
She  was  not  rich,  but  it  had  been  worth  while.  It 
was  a  beginning.  It  had  opened  the  door  into  a  new 
and  richer  life.  St.  IMary's  Bay  was  illumined  in  her 
thoughts,  instead  of  being  drab  and  empty  as  before. 
Sublimated  complexes  twinkled  over  it  like  stars.  Freed 
libido  poured  electrically  about  it.  And  Dr.  Cradock, 
she  felt,  would  be  m.ore  satisfactory  as  a  doctor  than 
this  man,  who  affected  her  with  a  faint  nausea  when 
he  looked  at  her,  though  he  seldom  did  so. 


io8  DANGEROUS  AGES 


Windover  too  was  illumined.  SEe  could  watch  al- 
most calmly  Neville  talking  to  Grandmama,  wheeling 
her  round  the  garden  to  look  at  the  borders,  for  Grand- 
mama  was  a  great  gardener. 

Then  Jim  came  down  for  a  week-end,  and  it  was  as 
if  the  sun  had  risen  on  Surrey.  He  sat  with  Mrs.  Hilary 
in  the  arbour.  She  told  him  about  Dr.  Evans  and  the 
other  psycho-analyst  doctor  at  St.  ]\Iary's  Bay.  He 
frowned  over  Dr.  Evans,  who  lived  in  the  same  street 
as  he  did. 

"Rosalind  sent  you  to  him;  of  course;  she  would. 
Why  didn't  you  ask  me,  mother?  He's  a  desperate 
Freudian,  you  know,  and  they're  not  nearly  so  good 
as  the  others.  Besides,  this  particular  man  is  a  shoddy 
scoundrel,  I  believe.  .  .  .  Was  he  offensive?" 

"I  wouldn't  let  him  be,  Jim.  I  was  prepared  for 
that.    I  ...  I  changed  the  conversation." 

Jim  laughed,  and  did  his  favourite  trick  with  her 
hand,  straightening  the  thin  fingers  one  by  one  as  they 
lay  across  his  sensitive  palm.  How  happy  it  always 
made  her! 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I  daresay  this  man  down  at  the 
Bay  is  all  right.  I'll  find  out  if  he's  any  good  or  not. 
.  .  .  They  talk  a  lot  of  tosh,  you  know,  mother;  you'll 
have  to  sift  the  grain  from  the  chaff." 

But  he  saw  that  her  eyes  were  interested,  her  face 
more  alert  than  usual,  her  very  poise  more  alive.  She 
had  found  a  new  interest  in  life,  like  keeping  a  parrot, 
or  learning  bridge,  or  getting  religion.  It  was  what 
they  had  always  tried  to  find  for  her  in  vain. 

"So  long,"  he  said,  "as  you  don't  believe  more  than 
half  what  they  tell  you.  .  .  .  Let  me  know  how  it  goes 


JIM  109 

on,  won't  you,  and  what  this  man  is  like.    If  I  don't 
approve  I  shall  come  and  stop  it." 

She  loved  that  from  Jim. 

"Of  course,  dearest.  Of  course  I  shall  tell  you  about 
it.    And  I  know  one  must  be  careful." 

It  was  something  to  have  become  an  object  for  care; 
it  put  one  more  in  the  foreground.  She  would  have 
gone  on  willingly  with  the  subject,  but  Jim  changed 
her  abruptly  for  Neville. 

"Neville's  looking  done  up." 

She  felt  the  little  sharp  pang  which  Neville's  name 
on  Jim's  lips  had  always  given  her.  His  very  pro- 
nunciation of  it  hurt  her — "Nivvle,"  he  said  it,  as  if 
he  had  been  an  Irishman.  It  brought  all  the  past  back; 
those  two  dear  ones  talking  together,  studying  to- 
gether, going  off  together,  bound  by  a  hundred  common 
interests,  telling  each  other  things  they  never  told  her. 

"Yes.  It's  this  ridiculous  work  of  hers.  It's  so 
absurd:  a  married  woman  of  her  age  making  her  head 
ache  working  for  examinations." 

In  old  days  Jim  and  Neville  had  worked  together. 
Jim  had  been  proud  of  Neville's  success;  she  had  been 
quicker  than  he.  Mrs.  Hilary,  who  had  welcomed 
Neville's  marriage  as  ending  all  that,  foresaw  a  renewal 
of  the  hurtful  business. 

But  Jim  looked  grave  and  disapproving  over  it. 

"It  is  absurd,"  he  agreed,  and  her  heart  rose.  "And 
of  course  she  can't  do  it,  can't  make  up  all  that  leeway. 
Besides,  her  brain  has  lost  its  grip.    She's  not  kept  it  \ 
sharpened;  she's  spent  her  life  on  people.    You  can't  ' 
have  it  both  ways — a  woman  can't,  I  mean.  Her  work's  \ 
been  different.    She  doesn't  seem  to  realise  that  what   ^ 
she's  trying  to  learn  up  again  now,  in  the  spare  mo- 
ments of  an  already  full  life,  demands  a  whole  life- 
time of  hard  VYork.    She  can't  get  back  those  twenty 


no  DANGEROUS  AGES 

years;  no  one  could.  And  she  can't  get  back  the  clear, 
gripping  brain  she  had  before  she  had  children.  She's 
given  some  of  it  to  them.  That's  nature's  way,  unfortu- 
nately. Hard  luck,  no  doubt,  but  there  it  is;  you  can't 
get  round  it.    Nature's  a  hybrid  of  fool  and  devil." 

He  was  talking  really  to  himself,  but  was  recalled  to 
his  mother  oy  the  tears  which,  he  suddenly  perceived, 
were  distorting  her  face. 

"And  so,"  she  whispered,  her  voice  choked,  "we 
women  get  left.  .  .  ." 

He  looked  away  from  her,  a  little  exasperated.  She 
cried  so  easily  and  so  superfluously,  and  he  knew  that 
these  tears  were  more  for  herself  than  for  Neville. 
And  she  didn't  really  come  into  what  he  had  been  say- 
ing at  all;  he  had  been  talking  about  brains. 

"It's  all  right  as  far  as  most  women  are  concerned," 
he  said.     "Most  women  have  no  brains  to  be  spoilt. 
Neville  had.    Most  women  could  do  nothing  at  all  with 
Hfe  if  they  didn't  produce  children;  it's  their  only  possi-j 
ble  job.    They've  no  call  to  feel  ill-used." 

"Of  course,"  she  said,  unsteadily,  struggling  to  clear 
her  voice  of  tears,  "I  know  you  children  all  think  I'm 
a  fool.  But  there  was  a  time  when  I  read  difficult  books 
with  your  father  ...  he,  a  man  with  a  iirst-class  mind, 
cared  to  read  with  me  and  discuss  with  me.  .  .  ." 

"Oh  yes,  yes,  mother,  I  know." 

Jim  and  all  of  them  knew  all  about  those  long-ago 
difficult  books.  They  knew  too  about  the  clever  friends 
who  used  to  drop  in  and  talk.  ...  If  only  Mrs.  Hilary 
could  have  been  one  of  the  nice,  jolly,  refreshing  people 
who  own  that  they  never  read  and  never  want  to.  All 
this  fuss  about  reading  and  cleverness — how  tedious  it 
was!  As  if  being  stupid  mattered,  as  if  it  was  worth 
bothering  about. 


JIM  III 

"Of  course  we  don't  think  you  a  fool,  mother  dear; 
how  could  we?" 

Jim  was  kind  and  affectionate,  never  ironic,  like  Gil- 
bert, or  impatient,  like  Nan.  But  he  felt  now  the  need 
for  fresh  air;  the  arbour  was  too  small  for  him  and 
Mrs.  Hilary,  who  was  as  tiring  to  others  as  to  herself. 

"I  think  I  shall  go  and  interrupt  Neville  over  her 
studies,"  said  Jim,  and  left  the  arbour. 

Mrs.  Hilary  looked  after  him,  painfully  loving  his 
square,  straight  back,  his  fine  dark  head,  just  flecked 
with  grey,  the  clean  line  of  his  profile,  with  the  firm  jaw 
clenched  over  the  pipe.  To  have  produced  Jim — 
wasn't  that  enough  to  have  lived  for?  Mrs.  Hilary 
was  one  of  those  mothers  who  apply  the  Magnificat  to 
their  own  cases.  She  always  felt  a  bond  of  human 
sympathy  between  herself  and  that  lady  called  the 
Virgin  Mary,  whom  she  thought  over-estimated. 


J 


/ 


Neville  raised  heavy  violet  eyes,  faintly  ringed  with 
shadows,  to  Jim  as  he  came  into  the  library.  She 
looked  at  him  for  a  moment  absently,  then  smiled.  He 
came  over  to  her  and  looked  at  the  book  before  her. 

"Working?  Where've  you  got  to?  Let's  see  how 
much  you  know." 

He  took  the  book  from  her  and  glanced  at  it  to  see 
what  she  had  been  reading. 

"Now  we'll  have  an  examination;  it'll  be  good  prac- 
tice for  you." 

He  put  a  question,  and  she  answered  it,  frowning  a 
Httle. 

'"H'm.    That's  not  very  good,  my  dear." 


112  DANGEROUS  AGES 

He  tried  again;  this  time  she  could  not  answer  at  all. 
At  the  third  question  she  shook  her  head. 

"It's  no  use,  Jimmy.  My  head's  hopeless  this  after- 
noon.   Another  time." 

He  shut  the  book. 

"Yes.  So  it  seems.  .  .  .  You're  overdoing  it, 
Neville.    You  can't  go  on  like  this." 

She  lay  back  and  spread  out  her  hands  hopelessly. 

"But  I  must  go  on  Hke  this  if  I'm  ever  going  to  get 
through  my  exams." 

"You're  not  going  to,  old  thing.  You're  quite  ob- 
viously unfitted  to.  It's  not  your  job  any  more.  It's 
absurd  to  try;  really  it  is." 

Neville  shut  her  eye§. 

"Doctors  .  .  .  doctors.  They  have  it  on  the  brain, 
— the  limitations  of  the  feminine  organism." 

"Because  they  know  something  about  it.  But  I'm 
not  speaking  of  the  feminine  organism  just  now.  I 
should  say  the  same  to  Rodney  if  he  thought  of  turn- 
ing doctor  now,  after  twenty  years  of  politics." 

"Rodney  never  could  have  been  a  doctor.  He  hates 
messing  about  with  bodies." 

"Well,  you  know  what  I  think.  I  can't  stop  you,  of 
course.  It's  only  a  question  of  time,  in  any  case.  You'll 
soon  find  out  for  yourself  that  it's  no  use." 

"I  think,"  she  answered,  in  her  small,  unemotional 
voice,  "that  it's  exceedingly  probable  that  I  shall." 

She  lay  inertly  in  the  deep  chair,  her  eyes  shut,  her 
hands  opened,  palms  downwards,  as  if  they  had  failed 
to  hold  something. 

"What  then,  Jim?    If  I  can't  be  a  doctor  what  can  I 

be?     Besides  Rodney's  wife,  I  mean?     I  -don't  say 

/    besides  the  children's  mother,  because  that's  stopped 

\    being  a  job.     They're  charming  to  me,  the  darlings, 


JIM  113 

but  they  don't  need  me  any  more;  they  go  their  own 
way." 

Jim  had  noticed  that. 

"Well,  after  all,  you  do  a  certain  amount  of  political 
work — public  speaking,  meetings,  and  so  on.  Isn't  that 
enough?" 

"That's  all  second-hand.  I  shouldn't  do  it  but  for 
Rodney.  I'm  not  public-spirited  enough.  If  Rodney 
dies  before  I  do,  I  shan't  go  on  with  that.  .  .  .  Shall  I 
just  be  a  silly,  self-engrosspd,  moping  old  woman,  no 
use  to  anyone  and  a  plague  to  myself?" 

The  eyes  of  both  of  them  strayed  out  to  the  garden. 

"Who's  the  silly  moping  old  woman?"  asked  Mrs. 
Hilary's  voice  in  the  doorway.  Arid  there  she  stood, 
leaning  a  little  forward,  a  strained  smile  on  her  face. 

"]\Ie,  mother,  when  I  shall  be  old,"  Neville  quickly 
answered  her,  smiling  in  return.  "Come  in,  dear.  Jim's 
telling  me  how  I  shall  never  be  a  doctor.  He  gave  me 
a  viva  voce  exam.,  and  I  came  a  mucker  over  it." 

Her  voice  had  an  edge  of  bitterness;  she  hadn't  liked 
coming  a  mucker,  nor  yet  being  told  she  couldn't  get 
through  exams.  She  had  plenty  of  vanity;  so  far  every- 
one and  everything  had  combined  to  spoil  her.  She 
was  determined,  in  the  face  of  growing  doubt,  to  prove 
Jim  wrong  yet. 

"Well,"  Mrs.  Hilary  said,  sitting  down  on  the  edge 
of  a  chair,  not  settling  herself,  but  looking  poised  to  go, 
so  as  not'to  seem  to  intrude  on  their  conversation,  "well, 
I  don't  see  why  you  want  to  be  a  doctor,  dear.  Every- 
one knows  women  doctors  aren't  much  good.  / 
wouldn't  trust  one." 

"Very  stupid  of  you,  mother,"  Jim  said,  trying  to 
pretend  he  wasn't  irritated  by  being  interrupted. 
"They're  every  bit  as  good  as  men." 


114  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"Fancy  being  operated  on  by  a  woman  surgeon.  I 
certainly  shouldn't  risk  it." 

''You  wouldn't  risk  it  .  .  ,  you  wouldn't  trust  them. 
You're  so  desperately  personal,  mother.  You  think 
that  contributes  to  a  discussion.  All  it  does  contribute 
to  is  your  hearers'  knowledge  of  your  limitations.  It's 
uneducated,  the  way  you  discuss." 

He  smiled  at  her  pleasantly,  taking  the  sting  out  of 
his  words,  turning  them  into  a  joke,  and  she  smiled  too, 
to  show  Neville  she  didn't  mind,  didn't  take  it  seri- 
ously. Jim  might  hurt  her,  but  if  he  did  no  one  should 
know  but  Jim  himself.  She  knew  that  at  times  she 
irritated  even  his  good  trnpir  by  being  uneducated 
and  so  on,  so  that  he  scolded  her,  but  he  scolded  her 
kindly,  not  venomously,  as  Nan  did. 

"'Well,  I've  certainly  no  right  to  be  uneducated,"  she 
said,  "and  I  can't  say  I'm  ever  called  so,  except  by  my 
children.  .  .  .  Do  you  remember  the  discussions  father 
and  I  used  to  have,  half  through  the  night?" 

Jim  and  Neville  did  remember  and  thought  "Poor 
father,"  and  were  silent. 

"I  should  think,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  "there  was  very 
little  we  didn't  discuss.  Politics,  books,  trades  unions, 
class  divisions,  moral  questions,  votes  for  women,  di- 
vorce ...  we  thrashed  everything  out.  We  both  thor- 
oughly enjoyed  it." 

Neville  said  "I  remember."  Familiar  echoes  came 
back  to  her  out  of  the  agitated  past, 

"Those  lazy  men,  all  they  want  is  to  get  a  lot  of 
money  for  doing  no  work." 

"I  like  the  poor  well  enough  in  their  places,  but  I 
cannot  abide  them  when  they  try  to  step  into  ours." 

"Let  women  mind  their  proper  business  and  leave 
men's  alone." 


JIM  115 

"I'm  certainly  not  going  to  be  on  calling  terms  with 
my  grocer's  wife." 

"I  hate  these  affected,  posing,  would-be  clever  books. 
Why  can't  people  write  in  good  plain  English?"  .  .  . 

Richard  Hilary,  a  scholar  and  a  patient  man,  blinded 
by  conjugal  love,  had  met  futilities  with  arguments,  ex- 
pressions of  emotional  distaste  with  facts,  trying  to  lift 
each  absurd  wrangle  to  the  level  of  a  discussion;  and  at 
last  he  died,  leaving  his  wife  with  the  conviction  that 
she  had  been  the  equal  mate  of  an  able  man.  Her  chil- 
dren had  to  face  and  conquer,  with  varying  degrees 
of  success,  the  temptation  to  undeceive  her. 

"But  I'm  interrupting,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary.  "I  know 
you  two  are  having  a  private  talk.  I'll  leave  you 
alone.  .  .  ." 

"No,  no,  mother."  That  was  Neville,  of  course. 
"Stay  and  defend  me  from  Jim's  scorn." 

How  artificial  one  had  to  be  in  family  life!  What 
an  absurd  thing  these  emotions  made  of  it! 

Mrs.  Hilary  looked  happier,  and  more  settled  in  her 
chair. 

"Where  are  Kay  and  Gerda?"  Jim  asked. 

Neville  told  him  "In  Guildford,  helping  Barry  Bris- 
coe with  W.  E.  A.  meetings.  They're  spending  a  lot  of 
time  over  that  just  now;  they're  both  as  keen  as 
mustard.  •  Nearly  as  keen  as  he  is.  He  sets  people  on 
fire.  It's  very  good  for  the  children.  They're  bring- 
ing him  up  here  to  spend  Sunday.  I  think  he  hopes 
every  time  to  find  Nan  back  again  from  Cornwall,  poor 
Barry.  He  was  very  down  in  the  mouth  when  she 
suddenly  took  herself  off." 

"If  Nan  doesn't  mean  to  have  him,  she  shouldn't 
have  encouraged  him,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary.  "He  was 
quite  obviously  in  love  with  her." 


ii6  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"Nan's  always  a  dark  horse,"  Neville  said.  "She 
alone  knows  what  she  means." 

Jim  said  "She's  a  flibberty-gibbet.  She'd  much 
better  get  married.  She's  not  much  use  in  the  world  at 
present.  Now  if  she  was  a  doctor  ...  or  doing  some- 
thing useful,  like  Pamela.  .  .  ." 

"Don't  be  prejudiced,  Jimmy.  Because  you  don't 
read  modern  novels  yourself  you  think  it's  no  use  their 
being  written." 

"I  read  some  modern  novels.  I  read  Conrad,  in 
spite  of  the  rather  absurd  attitude  some  people  take  up 
about  him;  and  I  read  good  detective  stories,  only 
they're  so  seldom  good.  I  don't  read  Nan's  kind. 
People  tell  me  they're  tremendously  clever  and  modern 
and  delightfully  written  and  get  very  well  reviewed, 
I  daresay.  I  very  seldom  agree  with  reviewers,  in  any 
case.  Even  about  Conrad  they  seem  to  me  (when  I 
read  them — I  don't  often)  to  pick  out  the  wrong  points 
to  admire  and  to  miss  the  points  I  should  criticise." 

Mrs.  Hilary  said  "Well,  I  must  say  I  can't  read 
Nan's  books  myself.  Simply,  I  don't  think  them  good. 
I  dislike  all  her  people  so  much,  and  her  style." 

"You're  a  pair  of  old  Victorians,"  Neville  told  them, 
pleasing  IVIrs.  Hilary  by  coupling  them  together  and 
leaving  Jim,  who  knew  why  she  did  it,  undisturbed. 
Neville  was  full  of  graces  and  tact,  a  possession  Jim 
had  always  appreciated  in  her. 

"And  there,"  said  Neville,  who  was  standing  at  the 
window,  "are  Barry  Briscoe  and  the  children  coming 
in." 

Jim  looked  over  her  shoulder  and  saw  the  three 
wheeling  their  bicycles  up  the  drive. 

"Gerda,"  he  remarked,  "is  a  prettier  thing  every 
time  I  see  her." 


CHAPTER  VII 

GERDA 


It  rained  so  hard,  so  much  harder  even  than  usual,  that 
Sunday,  that  only  Barry  and  Gerda  went  to  walk, 
Barry  walked  in  every  kind  of  weather,  even  in  the 
July  of  1920. 

To-day  after  lunch  Barry  said  "I'm  going  to  walk 
over  the  downs.  Anyone  coming?"  and  Gerda  got  up 
silently,  as  was  her  habit.  Kay  stretched  himself  and 
yawned  and  said  ''Me  for  the  fireside.  I  shall  have  to 
walk  every  day  for  three  weeks  after  to-day,"  for  he 
was  going  to-morrow  on  a  reading-party.  Rodney  and 
Jim  were  playing  a  game  of  chess  that  had  lasted  since 
breakfast  and  showed  every  sign  of  lasting  till  bed- 
time; Neville  and  Mrs.  Hilary  were  talking,  and  Grand- 
mama  was  upstairs,  having  her  afternoon  nap. 


They  tramped  along,  waterproofed  and  bare-headed, 
down  the  sandy  road.  The  rain  swished  in  Gerda 's 
golden  locks,  till  they  clung  dank  and  limp  about  her 
cheeks  and  neck;  it  beat  on  Barry's  glasses,  so  that  he 
took  them  off  and  blinked  instead.  The  trees  stormed 
and  whistled  in  the  southerly  wind  that  blew  from 

117 


ii8  DANGEROUS  AGES 

across  Merrow  Downs.  Barry  tried  to  whistle  down  it, 
but  it  caught  the  sound  from  his  puckered  lips  and 
whirled  it  away. 

Through  Merrow  they  strode,  and  up  onto  the  road 
that  led  across  the  downs,  and  there  the  wind  caught 
them  full,  and  it  was  as  if  buckets  of  water  were  being 
flung  into  their  faces.  The  downs  sang  and  roared; 
the  purple-grey  sky  shut  down  on  the  hill's  shoulder 
like  a  tent. 

"Lord,  what  fun,"  said  Barry,  as  they  gasped  for 
breath. 

Gerda  was  upright  and  slim  as  a  wand  against  the 
buffeting;  her  white  little  face  was  stung  into  shell- 
pink;  her  wet  hair  blew  back  like  yellow  seaweed. 

Barry  thought  suddenly  of  Nan,  who  revelled  in 
storms,  and  quickly  shut  his  mind  on  the  thought.  He 
was  schooling  himself  to  think  away  from  Nan,  with 
her  wild  animal  grace  and  her  flashing  mind  and  her 
cruel,  careless  indifference. 

Gerda  would  have  walked  like  this  forever.  Her 
wide  blue  eyes  blinked  away  the  rain;  her  face  felt 
stung  and  lashed,  yet  happy  and  cold;  her  mouth  was 
stiff  and  tight.  She  was  part  of  the  storm;  as  free,  as 
fierce,  as  singing;  though  outwardly  she  was  all  held 
together  and  silent,  only  smiling  a  little  with  her  shut 
mouth. 

As  they  climbed  the  downs,  the  wind  blew  more  wild- 
ly in  their  faces.  Gerda  swayed  against  it,  and  Barry 
took  her  by  the  arm  and  half  pushed  her. 

So  they  reached  Newlands  Corner,  and  all  southern 
Surrey  stormed  below  them,  and  beyond  Surrey  stormed 
Sussex,  and  beyond  Sussex  the  angry,  unseen  sea. 

They  stood  looking,  and  Barry's  arm  still  steadied 
Gerda  against  the  gale. 

Gerda  thought  "It  will  end.     It  will  be  over,  and  we 


GERDA  119 

shall  be  sitting  at  tea.  Then  Sunday  will  be  over,  and 
on  Monday  he  will  go  back  to  town."  The  pain  of 
that  end  of  the  world  turned  her  cold  beneath  the  glow 
of  the  storm.  Then  life  settled  itself,  very  simply. 
She  must  go  too,  and  work  with  him.  She  would  tell 
him  so  on  the  way  home,  when  the  wind  would  let  them 
talk. 

They  turned  their  backs  on  the  storm  and  ran  down 
the  hill  towards  Merrow,  Gerda,  light  as  a  leaf  on  the 
wind,  could  have  run  all  the  way  back'^v  Barry,  fit  and 
light  too,  but  fifteen  years  ahead  of  her,  fell  after  five 
minutes  into  a  walk. 

Then  they  could  talk  a  little. 

"And  to-morrow  I  shall  be  plugging  in  town,"  sighed 
Barry. 

Gerda  always  went  straight  to  her  point. 

"May  I  come  into  your  office,  please,  and  learn  the 
work?" 

He  smiled  down  at  her.     Splendid  child! 

"Why,  rather.  Do  you  mean  it?  When  do  you 
want  to  come?" 

"To-morrow?" 

He  laughed.  "Good.  I  thought  you  meant  in  the 
autumn.  .  .  .  To-morrow  by  all  means,  if  you  will. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  we're  frightfully  short-handed  in 
the  office  just  now.  Our  typist  has  crocked,  and  we 
haven't  another  yet,  so  people  have  to  type  their  own 
letters." 

"I  can  do  the  taping,"  said  Gerda,  composedly.  "I 
can  type  quite  well." 

"Oh,  but  that'll  be  dull  for  you.  That's  not 
what  you  want,  is  it?  Though,  if  you  want  to  learn 
about  the  work,  it's  not  a  bad  way  .  .  .  you  get  it  all 
passing  through  your  hands.  .  .  .  Would  you  really 
take  on  that  job  for  a  bit?" 


120  DANGEROUS  AGES 

Gerda  nodded. 

They  were  rapid  and  decided  people;  they  did  not 
beat  about  the  bush.  If  they  wanted  to  do  a  thing  and 
there  seemed  no  reason  why  not,  they  did  it. 

"That's  first-class,"  said  Barry.  "Give  it  a  trial, 
anyhow.  ...  Of  course  you'll  be  on  trial  too;  we  may 
find  it  doesn't  work.  If  so,  there  are  plenty  of  other 
jobs  to  be  done  in  the  office.  But  that's  what  we  most 
want  at  the  moment." 

Barry  had  a  way  of  assuming  that  people  wouldV 
want,  naturally,  to  do  the  thing  that  most  needed  doing.  / 

Gerda's  soul  sang  and  whistled  down  the  whistling 
wind.  It  wasn't  over,  then:  it  was  only  beginning. 
The  W.  E.  A.  was  splendid;  work  was  splendid;  Barry 
Briscoe  was  splendid;  life  was  splendid.  She  was  sorry 
for  Kay  at  Cambridge,  Kay  who  was  just  off  on  a  read- 
ing party,  not  helping  in  the  world's  work  but  merely 
getting  education.  Education  was  inspiring  in  con-\ 
nection  with  Democracy,  but  when  applied  to  oneself  \ 
it  was  dull. 

The  rain  was  lessening.  It  fell  on  their  heads  more 
lightly;  the  w^nd  was  like  soft  wet  kisses  on  their  backs, 
as  they  tramped  through  Merrow,  and  up  the  lane  to 
Windover. 


They  all  sat  round  the  tea-table,  and  most  of  them 
were  warm  and  sleepy  from  Sunday  afternoon  by  the 
fire,  but  Barry  and  Gerda  were  warm  and  tingling  from 
walking  in  the  storm.  Some  people  prefer  one  sensa- 
tion, some  the  other. 

Neville  thought  "How  pretty  Gerda  looks,  pink  like 
that."  She  was  glad  to  know  that  she  too  looked 
pretty,  in  her  blue  afternoon  dress.     It  was  good,  in 


GERDA  121 

that  charming  room,  that  they  should  all  look  agreeable 
to  the  eye.  Even  Mrs.  Hilary,  with  her  nervous,  faded 
grace,  marred  by  self-consciousness  and  emotion. 
And  Grandmama,  smiling  and  shrewd,  with  her  old  in- 
drawn lips;  and  Rodney,  long  and  lounging  and  clever; 
Jim,  square-set,  sensible,  clean-cut,  beautiful  to  his 
mother  and  to  his  women  patients,  good  for  everyone 
to  look  at;  Barry,  brown  and  charming,  with  his  quick 
smile;  the  boy  Kay,  with  his  pale,  rounded,  oval  face, 
his  violet  eyes  like  his  mother's,  only  short-sighted,  so 
that  he  had  a  trick  of  screwing  them  up  and  peering, 
and  a  mouth  that  widened  into  a  happy  sweetness  when 
he  smiled. 

They  were  all  right:  they  all  fitted  in  with  the  room 
and  with  each  other. 

Barry  said  "I've  not  been  idle  while  walking.  I've 
secured  a  secretary.  Gerda  says  she's  coming  to  work 
at  the  office  for  us  for  a  bit.     Now,  at  once." 

He  had  not  Gerda's  knack  of  silence.  Gerda  would 
shut  up  tight  over  her  plans  and  thoughts,  like  a  little 
oyster.  She  was  no  babbler;  she  did  things  and  never 
talked.     But  Barry's  plans  brimmed  up  and  over. 

Neville  said  "You  sudden  child!  And  in  July  and 
August,  too.  .  .  .  But  you'll  have  only  a  month  before 
you  join  Nan  in  Cornwall,  won't  you?" 

Gerda  nodded,  munching  a  buttered  scone. 

Grandmama,  like  an  old  war-horse  scenting  the  fray, 
thought  "Is  it  going  to  be  an  affair?     Will  they  fall  in 
love?    And  what  of  Nan?"    Then  rebuked  herself  for 
forgetting  what  she  really  knew  quite  well,  having  been 
told  it  often,  that  men  and  girls  in  these  days  worked   j 
together  and  did  everything  together,  with  no  thought  / 
of  affairs  or  of  falling  in  love.  .  .  .  Only  these  two  i 
were  very  attractive,  the  young  Briscoe  and  the  pretty 
child,  Gerda. 


122  DANGEROUS  AGES 

Neville,  who  knew  Gerda,  and  that  she  was  certainly 
in  love  again  (it  happened  so  often  with  Gerda'), 
thought  "Shall  I  stop  it?  Or  shall  I  let  things  take 
their  course?  Oh,  I'll  let  them  alone.  It's  only  one  of 
Gerda's  childish  hero-worships,  and  he'll  be  kind  with- 
out flirting.  It'll  do  Gerda  good  to  go  on  with  this  new 
work  she's  so  keen  on.  And  she  knows  he  cares  for 
Nan.    I  shall  let  her  go." 

Neville  very  nearly  always  let  Gerda  and  Kay  go 
their  own  way  now  that  they  were  grown-up.     To  in- 
terfere would  have  been  the  part  of  the  middle-aged 
old-fashioned  mother,  and  for  that  part  Neville  had  no  \ 
liking.     To  be  her  children's  friend  and  good  comrade,  ) 
that  was  her  role  in  life. 

"It's  good  of  you  to  have  her,"  she  said  to  Barry. 
"I  hope  you  won't  be  sorry.  .  .  .  She's  very  stupid 
sometimes — regular  Johnny  Head-in-air." 

"I  should  be  a  jolly  sight  more  use,"  Kay  remarked. 
"But  I  can't  come,  unfortunately.  She  can't  spell,  you 
know.     And  her  punctuation  is  weird." 

"She'll  learn,"  said  Barry,  cheerfully,  and  Gerda 
smiled  serenely  at  them  over  her  tea-cup. 


Barry  in  the  office  was  quick,  alert,  cheerful,  and 
business-like,  and  very  decided,  sometimes  impatient. 
Efficient:  that  was  the  word.  He  would  skim  the  cor- 
respondence and  dictate  answers  out  of  his  head,  walk- 
ing about  the  room,  interrupted  all  the  time  by  the  tele- 
phone and  by  people  coming  in  to  see  him.  Gerda's 
hero-worship  grew  and  grew;  her  soul  swelled  with  it; 
she  shut  it  down  tight  and  remained  calm  and  cool. 
When  he  joked,  when  he  smiled  his  charming  smile,  her 


GERDA  123 

heart  turned  over  within  her.  When  he  had  signed  the 
typed  letters,  she  would  sometimes  put  her  hand  for  a 
moment  where  his  had  rested  on  the  paper.  He 
was  stern  with  her  sometimes,  spoke  sharply  and  im- 
patiently, and  that,  in  a  queer  way,  she  hked.  She  had 
felt  the  same  pleasure  at  school,  when  the  head  of  the 
school,  whom  she  had  greatly  and  secretly  venerated, 
had  had  her  up  to  the  sixth  form  room  anji  rowed  her. 
Why?  That  was  for  psycho-analysts  to  discover; 
Gerda  only  knew  the  fact.  And  Barry,  after  he  had 
spoken  sharply  to  her,  when  he  had  got  over  his  anger, 
would  smile  and  be  even  kinder  than  usual,  and  that 
was  the  best  of  all. 

There  were  other  people  in  the  office,  of  course;  men 
and  women,  busy,  efficient,  coming  in  and  out,  talking, 
working,  organising.  They  were  kind,  pleasant  people. 
Gerda  liked  them,  but  they  were  shadowy. 

And  behind  them  all,  and  behind  Barry,  there  was 
the   work.     The    work    was    enormously    interesting. 
TGerda,  child  of  her  generation  and  of  her  parents,  was 
I  really  a  democrat,  really  public-spirited,  outside  the 
(little  private  cell  of  her  withdrawn  reserves.     Beauty 
/''wasn't  enough;    making  poetry  and  pictures  wasn't 
'\ enough;  one  had  to  give  everyone  his  and  her  chance 
\to  have  beauty  and  poetry  and  pictures  too.     In  spite 
of  having  been  brought  up  in  this  creed,  Gerda  and  Kay 
held  to  it,  had  not  reacted  from  it  to  a  selfish  aristoc- 
rr.C3%   as  you  might  think  likely.     Their  democracy 
went  much  further  than  that  of  their  parents.     They 
had  been  used  ardently  to  call  themselves  Bolshevists 
until  such  time  as  it  was  forced  upon  them  that  Bol- 
shevism was  not,  in  point  of  fact,  a  democratic  system. 
They  and  some  of  their  friends  still  occasionally  used 
that  label,  in  moments  rather  of  after-dinner  enthusi- 
asm than  of  the  precise  thinking  that  is  done  in  morn- 


124  DANGEROUS  AGES 

ing  light.  For,  after  all,  even  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell, 
even  Mrs.  Philip  Snowden,  might  be  wrong  in  their 
hurried  jottings  down  of  the  results  of  a  cursory  survey 
of  so  intricate  a  system.  And,  anyhow,  Bolshevism 
had  the  advantage  that  it  had  not  yet  been  tried  in  this 
country,  and  no  one,  not  even  the  most  imaginative  and 
clear-sighted  political  theorist,  could  forecast  the  pre- 
cise form  into  which  the  curious  British  climate  might 
mould  it  if  it  should  ever  adopt  it.  So  that  to  beheve 
in  it  was,  anyhow,  easier  than  believing  in  anything 
which  had  been  tried  (and,  like  all  things  which  are 
tried,  found  wanting)  such  as  Liberalism,  Toryism,  So- 
cialism, and  so  forth. 

But  the  W.  E.  A.  was  a  practical  body,  which  went 
in  for  practical  adventure.  Dowdy,  schoolmarmish, 
extension-lectureish,  it  might  be  and  doubtless  was. 
But  a  real  thing,  with  guts  in  it,  really  doing  something; 
and  after  all,  you  can't  be  incendiarising  the  political 
and  economic  constitution  all  your  time.  In  your  times 
off  you  can  do  something  useful,  something  which  shows 
results,  and  for  which  such  an  enormous  amount  of 
faith  and  hope  is  not  required.  Work  for  the  Revolu- 
tion— ^yes,  of  course,  one  did  that;  one  studied  the 
literature  of  the  Internationals;  one  talked.  .  .  .  But 
did  one  help  the  Revolution  on  much,  when  all  was 
said?  WHiereas  in  the  W.  E.  A.  office  one  really  got 
things  done ;  one  tj^ped  a  letter  and  something  happened 
because  of  it;  more  adult  classes  occurred,  more  work- 
ers got  educated.  Gerda,  too  young  and  too  serious  to 
be  cynical,  beheved  that  this  must  be  right  and  good. 


A  clever,  strange,  charming  child  Barry  found  her, 
old  and  young  beyond  her  twenty  years.     Her  wide-set 


GERDA  125 

blue  eyes  seemed  to  see  horizons,  and  too  often  to  be 
blind  to  foregrounds.  She  had  a  slow,  deliberating 
habit  of  work,  and  of  some  things  was  astonishingly 
ignorant,  with  the  ignorance  of  those  who,  when  at 
school,  have  worked  at  what  they  preferred  and  quietly 
disregarded  the  rest.  If  he  let  her  compose  a  letter,  its 
wording  would  be  quaint.  Her  prose  was,  in  fact, 
worse  than  her  verse,  and  that  was  saying^  a  good  deal. 
But  she  was  thorough,  never  slipshod.  Her  brain 
ground  slowly,  but  it  ground  exceeding  small;  there 
were  no  blurred  edges  to  her  apprehension  of  facts; 
either  she  didn't  know  a  thing  or  she  did,  and  that  sharp 
and  clear  distinction  is  none  too  common.  She  would 
file  and  index  papers  with  precision,  and  find  them 
again,  slow  and  sure,  when  they  were  required.  Added 
to  these  secretarial  gifts,  such  as  they  were,  she  had 
vision;  she  saw  always  the  dream  through  or  in  spite 
of  the  business;  she  was  like  Barry  himself  in  that. 
She  was  a  good  companion,  too,  though  she  had  no  wit 
and  not  very  much  humour,  and  none  of  Nan's  gifts  of 
keen  verbal  brilliance,  frequent  ribaldry  and  quick 
response;  she  would  digest  an  idea  slowly,  and  did  not 
make  jokes;  her  clear  mind  had  the  quality  of  a  crystal 
rather  than  of  a  flashing  diamond.  The  rising  genera- 
tion; the  woman  citizen  of  to-morrow:  what  did  not 
rest  on  her,  and  what  might  she  not  do  and  be?  Nan, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  the  woman  citizen  of  to-day. 
And  Nan  did  not  bother  to  use  her  vote  because  she 
found  all  the  parties  and  all  the  candidates  about 
equally  absurd.  Barry  had  argued  with  Nan  about 
that,  but  made  no  impression  on  her  cynical  indiffer- 
ence; she  had  met  him  with  levity.  To  Gerda  there 
was  a  wrong  and  a  right  in  politics,  instead  of  only  a 
lot  of  wrongs;  touching  young  faith,  Nan  called  it,  but 
Barry,  who  shared  it,  found  it  cheering. 


126  DANGEROUS  AGES 

This  pretty  little  white  pixyish  person,  with  her 
yellow  hair  cut  straight  across  her  forehead  and  wav- 
ing round  her  neck  like  the  curled,  shining  petals  of  a 
celandine,  with  her  straight-thinking  mind  and  her 
queer,  secret,  mystic  thoughts — she  was  the  woman  of 
the  future,  a  citizen  and  a  mother  of  citizens.  She  and 
the  other  girls  and  boys  were  out  to  build  the  new 
heaven  and  the  new  earth,  and  their  children  would 
carry  it  on.  This  responsibility  of  Gerda's  invested 
her  with  a  special  interest  in  the  eyes  of  Barry,  who 
lived  and  worked  for  the  future,  and  who,  when  he  saw 
an  infant  mewling  and  puking  in  a  pram,  was  apt  to 
think  "The  hope  for  the  world,"  and  smile  at  it  en- 
couragingly, overlooking  its  present  foolishness  of 
aspect  and  habit.  If  ever  he  had  children  ...  if 
Nan  would  marry  him  .  .  .  but  Nan  would  always 
lightly  slide  away  when  he  got  near  her.  ...  He  could 
see  her  now,  with  the  cool,  amused  smile  tilting  her  lips, 
always  sliding  away,  eluding  him.  .  .  .  Nan,  like  a 
wild  animal  for  grace,  brilliant  like  blown  fire,  cool  like 
the  wind,  stabbing  herself  and  him  with  her  keen  wit. 

Gerda,  looking  up  from  her  typewriter  to  say  "How 
do  you  spell  comparatively?"  saw  his  face  in  its  mo- 
mentary bitterness  as  he  frowned,  pen  in  hand,  out  of 
the  window.  He  was  waiting  to  sign  the  letters  before 
he  went  out  to  a  committee  meeting,  and  she  thought 
she  was  annoying  him  by  her  slowness.  She  spelt  com- 
paratively anyhow,  and  with  the  wholehearted  wrong- 
ness  to  which  she  and  the  typewriter,  both  bad  spellers, 
often  attained  in  conjunction,  hastily  finished  and  laid 
the  letters  before  him.  Called  back  to  work  and 
actuality,  Barry  was  again  cheerful  and  kind,  and  he 
smilingly  corrected  comparatively. 

"You  might  ask  me/'  he  suggested,  "instead  of  ex- 


GERDA  127 

perimenting,  when  I  do  happen  to  be  at  hand.  Other- 
wise a  dictionary,  or  Miss  Pinner  in  the  next 
room  .  .  .  ?" 

Gerda  was  happy,  now  that  the  shadow  was  off  his 
face.  Raillery  and  rebuke  she  did  not  mind;  only  the 
shadow,  which  fell  coldly  on  her  heart  too. 

He  left  the  office  then  for  the  day,  as  he  often  did, 
but  it  was  warm  and  alive  with  his  presence,  and  she 
was  doing  his  work,  and  she  would  see  him  again  in 
the  morning. 


Gerda  went  home  only  for  week-ends  now;  it  was  too 
slow  a  journey  to  make  every  morning  and  evening. 
She  stayed  during  the  week  at  a  hotel  called  the  Red 
House,  in  Magpie  Alley,  off  Bouverie  Street.  It  was  a 
hotel  kept  by  revolutionary  souls  exclusively  for  revo- 
lutionary souls.  Gerda,  who  had  every  right  there,  had 
gained  admittance  through  friends  of  hers  who  lodged 
there.  Every  evening  at  six  o'clock  she  went  back 
through  the  rain,  as  she  did  this  evening,  and  changed 
her  wet  clothes  and  sat  down  to  dinner,  a  meal  which 
all  the  revolutionary  souls  ate  together  so  that  it  was 
sacramental,  a  breaking  of  common  bread  in  token  of 
a  common  faith. 

They  were  a  friendly  party.  At  one  end  of  the  table 
Aunt  Phyllis  presided.  Aunt  Phyllis,  who  was  really 
the  aunt  of  only  one  young  man,  kept  this  Red  House. 
She  was  a  fiery  little  revolutionary  in  the  late  forties, 
small,  and  thin  and  darting,  full  of  faith  and  fire.  She 
was  on  the  staff  of  the  British  Bolshevist,  and  for 
the  rest,  wrote  leaflets,  which  showered  from  her  as 
from  trees  in  autumn  gales.  So  did  the  Rev.  Anselm 
Digby.     Mr.  Digby  had  also  the  platform  habit,  he 


128  DANGEROUS  AGES 

would  go  round  the  country  denouncing  and  inciting  to 
revolution  in  the  name  of  Christ  and  of  the  Third  Inter- 
national. Though  grizzled,  he  belonged  to  the  League 
of  Youth,  as  well  as  to  many  other  eager  fraternities. 
He  was  unbeneficed,  having  no  time  for  parish  work. 
This  ardent  clergyman  sat  at  the  other  end  of  Aunt 
Phyllis's  table,  as  befitted  his  years. 

The  space  between  the  two  ends  was  filled  by 
younger  creatures.  It  was  spring  with  them;  their 
leaflets  were  yet  green  and  un fallen;  all  that  fell  from 
them  was  poetry,  pathetic  in  its  sadness,  bitter  in  its 
irony,  free  of  metrical  or  indeed  of  any  other  restraints, 
and  mainly  either  about  how  unpleasant  had  been  the 
trenches  in  which  they  had  spent  the  years  of  the  great 
war  and  those  persons  over  military  age  who  had  not 
been  called  upon  to  enter  them,  or  about  freedom;  free 
love,  free  thought  and  a  free  world.  Yes,  both  these 
subjects  sound  a  little  old-fashioned,  but  the  Red  House 
was  concerned  with  these  elemental  changeless  things. 
And  some  of  them  also  wrote  fiction,  quiet,  grey,  a  little 
tired,  about  unhappy  persons  to  whom  nothing  was 
very  glad  or  very  sad,  and  certainly  neither  right  nor 
wrong,  but  only  rough  or  smooth  of  surface,  bright  or 
dark  of  hue,  sweet  or  bitter  of  taste  or  smell.  Most  of 
those  in  the  room  belonged  to  a  Freudian  circle  at 
their  club,  and  all  were  anti-Christian,  except  an  Irish 
Roman  Catholic,  who  had  taken  an  active  part  in  the 
Easter  uprising  of  191 6,  since  when  he  had  been  living 
in  exile;  Aunt  Phyllis,  who  believed  in  no  churches  but 
in  the  Love  of  God;  and  of  course,  INIr.  Digby.  All 
these  people,  though  they  did  not  always  get  on  very 
well  together,  were  linked  by  a  common  aim  in  life, 
and  by  common  hatreds. 

But,  in  spite  of  hate,  the  Red  House  lodgers  were  a 


GERDA  129 

happy  set  of  revolutionaries.  Real  revolutionaries; 
having  their  leaflets  printed  by  secret  presses;  mem- 
bers of  societies  which  exchanged  confidential  letters 
with  the  more  eminent  Russians,  such  as  Litvinoff  and 
Trotzky,  collected  for  future  publication  secret  circu- 
lars, private  strike-breaking  orders,  and  other  obiter 
dicta  of  a  rash  government,  and  believed  themselves  to 
be  working  to  establish  the  Soviet  governftient  over 
Europe.  They  had  been  angry  all  this  summer  be- 
cause the  Glasgow  conference  of  the  I.  L.  P.  had 
broken  with  the  Third  International.  They  spoke  with 
acerbity  of  Mr.  Ramsay  Macdonald  and  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Philip  Snowden.  But  now,  in  August,  they  had  little 
acerbity  to  spare  for  anything  but  the  government's 
conduct  of  Irish  affairs. 


But,  though  these  were  Gerda's  own  people,  the  circle 
in  which  she  felt  at  home,  she  looked  forward  every 
night  to  the  morning,  when  there  would  be  the  office 
again,  and  Barry. 

Sometimes  Barry  took  her  out  to  dinner  and  a 
theatre.  They  went  to  the  ''Beggar's  Opera,"  "The 
Grain  of  Mustard  Seed,"  "INIary  Rose"  (which  they 
found  sentimental),  and  to  the  "Beggar's  Opera"  again 
Gerda  had  her  own  ideas,  very  definite  and  critical, 
about  dramatic  merit.  Barry  enjoyed  discussing  the 
plays  with  her,  listening  to  her  clear  little  silver  voice 
pronouncing  judgment.  Gerda  might  be  forever 
mediocre  in  any  form  of  artistic  expression,  but  she 
was  an  artist,  with  the  artist's  love  of  merit  and  scorn 
of  the  second-rate. 


130  DANGEROUS  AGES 

They  went  to  "Mary  Rose"  with  some  girl  cousins 
of  Barry's,  two  jolly  girls  from  Girton.  Against  their 
undiscriminating  enthusiasm,  Gerda  and  her  fastidious 
distaste  stood  out  sharp  and  clear,  like  some  delicate 
etching  among  flamboyant  pictures.  That  fastidious- 
ness she  had  from  both  her  parents,  with  something  of 
her  own  added. 

Barry  went  home  with  her.  He  wondered  how  her 
fastidiousness  stood  the  grimy  house  in  Magpie  Alley 
and  its  ramshackle  habit  of  life,  after  the  distinctions 
and  beauty  of  Windover,  but  he  thought  it  was  prob- 
ably very  good  for  her,  part  of  the  experience  which 
should  mould  the  citizen.  Gerda  shrank  from  no  ex- 
perience. At  the  corner  of  Bouverie  Street  they  met 
a  painted  girl  out  for  hire,  strayed  for  some  reason  into 
this  unpropitious  locality.  For  the  moment  Gerda  had 
fallen  behind  and  Barry  seemed  alone.  The  girl 
stopped  in  his  path,  looked  up  in  his  face  enquiringly, 
and  he  pushed  his  way,  not  urgently,  past  her.  The 
next  moment  Gerda 's  hand  caught  his  arm. 

"Stop,  Barry,  stop." 

"Stop?     What  for?" 

"The  woman.     Didn't  you  see?" 

"My  dear  child,  I  can't  do  anything  for  her." 

Like  the  others  of  her  generation,  Gerda  was  in- 
terested in  persons  of  that  profession;  he  knew  that 
already;  only  they  saw  them  through  a  distorting  mist. 

"We  can  find  out  where  she  works,  what  wages  she 
gets,  why  she's  on  the  streets.  She's  probably  working 
for  sweated  wages  somewhere.     We  ought  to  find  out." 

"We  can't  find  out  about  every  woman  of  that  kind 
we  meet.  The  thing  is  to  attack  the  general  principle 
behind  the  thing,  not  each  individual  case.  .  .  .  Be- 
sides, it  would  be  so  frightfully  impertinent  of  us.    How 


GERDA  131 

would  you  like  it  if  someone  stopped  you  in  the  street 
and  asked  you  where  you  worked  and  whether  you 
were  sweated  or  not,  and  why  you  were  out  so  late?" 
"I  shouldn't  mind,  if  they  wanted  to  know  for  a  good 
reason.  One  ought  to  find  out  how  things  are,  what 
people's  conditions  are." 

It  was  what  Barry  too  believed  and  practised,  but 
he  could  only  say  "It's  the  wrong  way  round.     You've 
got  to  work  from  the  centre  to  the  circumference.  .  .  . 
And  don't  fall  into  the  sentimental  mistake  of  thinking  ) 
that  all  prostitution  comes  from  sweated  labour,     A  \ 
great  deal  does,  of  course,  but  a  great  deal  because  it 
seems  to  some  women  an  easy  and  attractive  way  of  ^' 
earning  a  living.  .  .  .  Oh,  hammer  away  at  sweated  .  "^ 
labour  for  all  you're  worth,  of  course,  for  that  reason  ,    S 
and  every  other;  but  you  won't  stop  prostitution  till'     ' 
(^  you  stop  the  demand  for  it.     That's  the  poisonous  root' 
I  of  the  thing.    So  long  as  the  demand  goes  on,  you'll  get? 
I  the  supply,  whatever  economic  conditions  may  be."     I 
Gerda  fell  silent,  pondering  on  the  strange  tastes  of 
those  who  desired  for  some  reason  the  temporary  com- 
pany of  these  unfortunate  females,  so  unpleasing  to  the 
eye,  to  the  ear,  to  the  mind,  to  the  smell;  desired  it  so 
much   that   they  would   pay   money   for   it.     Why? 
Against  that  riddle  the  non-comprehension  of  her  sex 
beat  itself,  baffled.     She  might  put  it  the  other  way 
round,  try  to  imagine  herself  desiring,  paying  for,  the 
tempor:jry  attentions  of  some  dirty,  common,  vapid, 
and  patchouli-scented  man — and  still  she  got  no  nearer. 
For  she  never   could   desire   it.  .  .  .  Well,   anyhow,  , 
there  the  thing  was.     Stop  the  demand?     Stop  that  de- 
/  sire  of  men  for  women?     Stop  the  ready  response  of      ) 
\  women  to  it?     If  that  was  the  only  v/ay,  then  there  ' 
1  was  indeed  nothing   for  it  but  education — and  wasS 
even  education  any  use  for  that?  ^ 


132  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"Is  it  love,"  she  asked  of  Barry,  "that  the  men  feel 
who  want  these  women?" 

Barry  laughed  shortly.     "Love?     Good  Lord,  no." 

"What  then,  Barry?" 

"I  don't  know  that  it  can  be  explained,  exactly.  .  .  . , 
It's  a  passing  taste,  I  suppose,  a  desire  for  the  company  >^ 
of  another  sex  from  one's  own,  just  because  it  is  another  ' 
sex,  though  it  may  have  no  other  attractions.  .  .  ,  It's  ' 
no  use  trying  to  analyse  it,  one  doesn't  get  anywhere.  J 
But  it's  not  love." 

"What's  love,  then?     What's  the  difference?" 

"Have  I  to  define  love,  walking  down  Magpie  Alley? 
You  could  do  it  as  well  as  I  could.  Love  has  theN^ 
imagination  in  it,  and  the  mind.  I  suppose  that's  theC. 
difference.  And,  too,  love  wants  to  give.  This  is  all  ( 
platitude.  No  one  can  ever  say  anything  new  about  | 
love,  it's  all  been  said.     Got  your  latch-key?"  ^ 

Gerda  let  herself  into  the  Red  House  and  went  up  to 
bed  and  lay  wakeful.  Very  certainly  she  loved  Barry,  s 
with  all  her  imagination  and  all  her  mind,  and  she 
would  have  given  him  more  than  all  that  was  hers. 
Very  surely  and  truly  she  loved  him,  even  if  after  all 
he  was  to  be  her  uncle  by  marriage,  which  would  maks 
their  family  life  like  that  in  one  of  Louis  Couperus's 
books.  But  why  unhappy  like  that?  Was  love  un- 
happy? If  she  might  see  him  sometimes,  talk  to  him,  if 
Nan  wouldn't  want  all  of  him  all  the  time — and  it 
would  be  unlike  Nan  to  do  that — she  could  be  happy. 
One  could  share,  after  all.  Women  must  share,  for 
there  were  a  million  more  women  in  England  than 
men. 

But  probably  Nan  didn't  mean  to  marry  him  at  all. 
Nan  never  married  people.  .  .  . 


GERDA  133 


8 


Next  morning  at  the  office  Barry  said  he  had  heard 
from  Nan.  She  had  asked  him  to  come  too  and  bicycle 
in  Cornwall,  with  her  and  Gerda  and  Kay. 

"You  will,  won't  you,"  said  Gerda. 

"Rather,  of  course." 

A  vaguely  puzzled  note  sounded  in  his  voice.  But 
he  would  come. 

Cornwall  was  illuminated  to  Gerda.  The  sharing 
process  would  begin  there.  But  for  a  week  more  she 
had  him  to  herself,  and  that  was  better. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

NAN 


Nan  at  Marazion  bathed,  sailed,  climbed,  walked  and 
finished  her  book.  She  had  a  room  at  St.  Michael's 
Cafe,  at  the  edge  of  the  little  town,  just  above  the 
beach.  Across  a  space  of  sea  at  high  tide,  and  of  wet 
sand  and  a  paved  causeway  slimy  with  seaweed  at  the 
ebb,  St.  Michael's  Mount  loomed,  dark  against  a  sunset 
sky,  pale  and  unearthly  in  the  dawn,  an  embattled  ship 
riding  anchored  on  full  waters,  or  stranded  on  drowned 
sands. 

Nan  stayed  at  the  empty  little  town  to  be  alone. 
But  she  was  not  alone  all  the  time,  for  at  Newlyn,  five 
miles  away,  there  was  the  artist  colony,  and  some  of 
these  artists  were  her  friends.  (In  point  of  fact,  it  is 
impossible  to  be  alone  in  Cornwall;  the  place  to  go  to 
for  that  would  be  Hackney,  or  some  other  district  of 
outer  London,  where  inner  Londoners  do  not  go  for 
holidays.)  Had  she  liked  she  could  have  had  friends 
to  play  with  all  day,  and  talk  and  laughter  and  music 
all  night,  as  in  London.  She  did  not  like.  She  went 
out  by  herself,  worked  by  herself;  and  all  the  time, 
in  company,  or  alone,  talking  or  working,  she  knew  her- 
self withdrawn  really  into  a  secret  cove  of  her  own 
which  was  warm  and  golden  as  no  actual  coves  in  this 
chill  summer  were  warm  and  golden;  a  cove  on  whose 
good  brown  sand  she  lay  and  made  castles  and  played, 

134 


NAN  135 

while  at  her  feet  the  great  happy  sea  danced  and  beat, 
the  great  tumbling  sea  on  which  she  would  soon  put  out 
her  boat. 

She  would  count  the  days  before  Barry  would  be  with 
her. 

"Three  weeks  now.  Twenty  days;  nineteen, 
eighteen  .  .  ."  desiring  neither  to  hurry  nor  to  retard 
them,  but  watching  them  slip  behind  her  in  a  deep  con- 
tent. When  he  came,  he  and  Gerda  and  Kay,  they 
would  spend  one  night  and  one  day  in  this  fishing-town, 
lounging  about  its  beach,  and  in  Newlyn,  with  its  steep 
crooked  streets  between  old  grey  walls  hung  with 
shrubs,  and  beyond  Newlyn,  in  the  tiny  fishing  hamlets 
that  hung  above  the  little  coves  from  Penzance  to 
Land's  End.  They  were  going  to  bicycle  all  along  the 
south  coast.  But  before  that  they  would  have  had  it 
out,  she  and  Barry;  probably  here,  in  the  little  pale 
climbing  fishing-town.  No  matter  where,  and  no  mat- 
ter how;  Nan  cared  nothing  for  scenic  arrangements. 
All  she  had  to  do  was  to  convey  to  Barry  that  she  would 
say  yes  now  to  the  question  she  had  put  off  and  off,  let 
him  ask  it,  give  her  answer,  and  the  thing  would  be 
done. 


Meanwhile  she  wrote  the  last  chapters  of  her  book, 
sitting  on  the  beach  among  drying  nets  and  boats,  in 
some  fishing  cove  up  the  coast.  The  Newlyn  shore  she 
did  not  like,  because  the  artist-spoilt  children  crowded 
round  her,  interrupting. 

"Lady,  lady!     Will  you  paint  us?" 

"No.     I  don't  paint." 

"Then  what  are  you  doing?" 

"Writing.     Go  away." 


136  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"May  we  come  with  you  to  where  you're  staying?" 

"No.     Go  away." 

"Last  year  a  lady  took  us  to  her  studio  and  gave  us 
pennies.  And  when  she'd  gone  back  to  London  she 
sent  us  each  a  doll.'' 

Silence. 

"Lady,  if  we  come  with  you  to  your  studio,  will  you 
give  us  pennies?" 

"No.     Why  should  I?" 

"You  might  because  you  wanted  to  paint  us.  You 
might  because  you  liked  us." 

"I  don't  do  either.     Go  away  now." 

They  withdrew  a  little  and  turned  somersaults,  sup- 
posing her  to  be  watching.  The  artistic  colony  had  a 
lot  to  answer  for,  Nan  thought;  they  were  making  para- 
sites and  prostitutes  of  the  infant  populace.  Children 
could  at  their  worst  be  detestable  in  their  vanity,  their 
posing,  their  affectation,  their  unashamed  greed. 

"Barry's  and  mine,"  she  thought  (I  suppose  we'll 
have  some),"  shall  at  least  not  pose.    They  may  break  ,. 
all  the  commandments,  but  if  they  turn  somersaults  to  \ 
be  looked  at  I  shall  drop  them  into  a  public  creche  and  ) 
abandon  them." 

The  prettiest  little  girl  looked  sidelong  at  the  unkind^ 
lady,  and  believed  her  half-smile  to  denote  admiration.  / 
Pretty  little  giris  often  make  this  error.  / 

Stephen  Lumley  came  along  the  beach.  It  was  lunch 
time,  and  after  lunch  they  were  going  out  sailing. 
Stephen  Lumley  was  the  most  important  artist  just  now 
in  Newlyn.  He  had  been  in  love  with  Nan  for  some 
months,  and  did  not  get  on  with  his  wife.  Nan  liked 
him;  he  painted  brilliantly,  and  was  an  attractive, 
clever,  sardonic  person.  Sailing  with  him  was  fun. 
They  understood  each  other;  they  had  rather  the  same 
cynical  twist  to  them.     They  understood  each  other 


NAN  137 

really  better  than  Nan  and  Barry  did.    Neither  of 
them  needed  to  make  any  effort  to  comprehend  each 
other's  point  of  view.     And  each  left  the  other  where 
he  was.    Whereas  Barry  filled  Nan,  beneath  her  cyni- 
cism, beneath  her  levity,  with  something  quite  new — a 
{  queer  desire,  to  put  it  simply,  for  goodness,  for  straight 
/  living  and  generous  thinking,  even,  within-  reason,  for 
I  usefulness.     More  and  more  he  flooded  her  inmost 
being,  drowning  the  old  landmarks,  like  the  sea  at  high 
tide.     Nan  was  not  a  Christian,  did  not  believe  in  God, 
but    she    came    near    at    this    time    to    believing    in 
^hristiaflit^  ^s  possibly  a  fine  and  adventurous  thing___ 
to  live  "       ~~~"' 


Echoes  of  the  great  little  world  so  far  off  came  to  the 
Cornish  coasts,  through  the  Western  Mercury  and  the 
stray,  belated  London  papers.  Rumours  of  a  projected 
coal  strike,  of  fighting  in  Mesopotamia,  of  political 
prisoners  on  hunger  strike,  of  massacres  in  Ireland, 
and  typists  murdered  at  watering-places;  echoes  of 
Fleet  Street  quarrels,  of  Bolshevik  gold  ("Not  a  bond! 
Not  a  franc!  Not  a  rouble!")  and,  from  the  religious 
world,  of  fallen  man  and  New  Faiths  for  Old.  And  on 
Sundays  one  bought  a  paper  which  had  for  its  special 
star  comic  turn  the  reminiscences  of  the  expansive  wife 
of  one  of  our  more  patient  politicians.  The  world  went 
on  just  the  same,  quarrelling,  chattering,  h'ing;  senti- 
mental, busy  and  richly  absurd;  its  denizens  tilting 
against  each  other's  politics,  murdering  each  other,  try- 
ing and  alwaj's  failing  to  swim  across  the  channel,  and 
always  talking,  talking,  talking.  IMarazion  and  New- 
lyn,  and  every  other  place  were  the  world  in  little,  doing 
all  the  same  things  in  their  own  miniature  way.     Each 


138  DANGEROUS  AGES 

human  soul  was  the  world  in  little,  with  all  the  same 
conflicts,  hopes,  emotions,  excitements  and  intrigues. 
But  Nan,  sv/imming,  sailing,  eating,  writing,  walking 
and  lounging,  browning  in  salt  winds  and  waters,  was 
happy  and  remote,  like  a  savage  on  an  island  who 
meditates  exclusively  on  his  own  affairs. 


Nan  met  them  at  Penzance  station.  The  happy 
three;  they  would  be  good  to  make  holiday  with.  Al- 
ready they  had  holiday  faces,  though  not  yet  browned 
like  Nan's. 

Barry's  hand  gripped  Nan's.  He  was  here  then,  and 
it  had  come.  Her  head  swam;  she  felt  light,  like 
thistledown  on  the  wind. 

They  came  up  from  the  station  into  quiet,  gay,  warm 
Penzance,  and  had  tea  at  a  shop.  They  were  going  to 
stay  at  Marazion  that  night  and  the  next,  and  spend 
the  day  bicycling  to  Land's  End  and  back.  They  were 
all  four  full  of  vigour,  brimming  with  life  and  energy 
that  needed  to  be  spent.     But  Gerda  looked  pale. 

"She's  been  overworking  in  a  stuffy  office,"  Barry 
said.  "And  not,  except  when  she  dined  with  me, 
getting  proper  meals.  What  do  you  think  she  weighs, 
Nan?" 

"About  as  much  as  that  infant  there,"  Nan  said, 
indicating  a  stout  person  of  five  at  the  next  table. 

"Just  about,  I  daresay.  She's  only  six  stone.  What 
are  we  to  do  about  it?" 

His  eyes  caressed  Gerda,  as  they  might  have  caressed 
a  child.  He  would  be  a  delightful  uncle  by  marriage. 
Nan  thought. 

They  took  the  road  to  Marazion.     The  tide  was 


NAN  139 

going  out.  In  front  of  them  the  Mount  rose  in  a  shal- 
lowing violet  sea. 

"My  word!"  said  Barry,  and  Kay,  screwing  up  his 
eyes,  murmured,  "Good  old  Mount."  Gerda's  lips 
parted  in  a  deep  breath;  beauty  always  struck  her 
dumb. 

Into  the  pale-washed,  straggling  old  village  they  rode, 
stabled  their  bicycles,  and  went  down  to  the  shining 
evening  sands,  where  now  the  paved  causeway  to  the 
Mount  was  all  exposed,  running  slimy  and  seaweedy  be- 
tween rippled  wet  sands  and  dark,  slippery  rocks. 
Bare- footed  they  trod  it,  Gerda  and  Kay  in  front, 
Barry  and  Nan  behind,  and  the  gulls  talking  and  wheel- 
ing round  them. 

Nan  stopped,  the  west  in  her  eyes.    "Look." 

Point  beyond  point  they  saw  stretching  westward 
to  Land's  End,  dim  and  dark  beyond  a  rose-flushed 
sea. 

"Isn't  it  clear,"  said  Nan.  "You  can  see  the  cliff 
villages  ever  so  far  along  .  .  .  Newlyn,  Mousehole, 
Clement's  Island  off  it — and  the  point  of  Lamorna." 

Barry  said  "We'll  go  to  Land's  End  by  the  coast  road 
to-morrow,  shan't  we,  not  the  high  road?" 

"Oh,  the  coast  road,  yes.  It's  about  twice  the  dis- 
tance, with  the  ups  and  downs,  and  you  can't  ride  all 
the  way.     But  we'll  go  by  it." 

For  a  moment  they  stood  side  by  side,  looking  west- 
ward over  the  bay. 

Nan  said,  "Aren't  you  glad  you  came?" 

"I  should  say  so!" 

His  answer  came,  quick  and  emphatic.  There  was 
a  pause  after  it.  Nan  suddenly  turned  on  him  the  edge 
of  a  smile. 

Barry  did  not  see  it.     He  was  not  looking  at  her, 


I40  DANGEROUS  AGES 

nor  over  the  bay,  but  in  front  of  him,  to  where  Gerda,  a 
thin  little  upright  form,  moved  bare-legged  along  the 
shining  causeway  to  the  moai. 

Nan's  smile  flickered  out.  The  sunset  tides  of  rose 
flamed  swiftly  over  her  cheeks,  her  neck,  her  body,  and 
receded  as  sharply,  as  if  someone  had  hit  her  in  the 
face.  Her  pause,  her  smile,  had  been  equivalent,  as 
she  saw  them,  to  a  permission,  even  to  an  invitation. 
He  had  turned  away  unnoticing,  a  queer,  absent  tender- 
ness in  his  eyes,  as  tliey  followed  Gerda  .  .  .  Gerda 
.  .  .  walking  light-footed  up  the  wet  causeway.  .  .  . 
Well,  if  he  had  got  out  of  the  habit  of  wanting  to  make 
love  to  her,  she  would  not  offer  him  chances  again. 
When  he  got  the  habit  back,  he  must  make  his  own 
chances  as  best  he  could. 

"Come  on,"  said  Nan.     "We  must  hurry." 

She  left  no  more  pauses,  but  talked  all  the  time, 
about  Newlyn,  about  the  artists,  about  the  horrid  chil- 
dren, the  fishing,  the  gulls,  the  weather. 

"And  how's  the  book?"  he  asked. 

"Nearly  done.  I'm  waiting  for  the  end  to  make 
itself." 

He  smiled  and  looking  round  at  him  she  saw  that  he 
was  not  smiling  at  her  or  her  book,  but  at  Gerda,  who 
had  stepped  off  the  causeway  and  was  wading  in  a  rock 
pool. 

He  must  be  obsessed  with  Gerda;  he  thought  of  her, 
apparently,  ail  the  time  he  was  talking  about  other 
things.     It  was  irritating  for  an  aunt  to  bear. 

They  joined  Kay  and  Gerda  on  the  island.  Kay 
was  prowling  about,  looking  for  a  way  by  which  to 
enter  the  forbidden  castle.  Kay  always  trespassed 
when  he  could,  and  was  so  courteous  and  gentle  when 
he  was  caught  at  it  that  he  disarmed  comment.     But 


NAN  141 

this  time  he  could  not  manage  to  evade  the  polite  but 
firm  eye  of  the  fisherman  on  guard.  They  crossed  over 
to  Marazion  again  all  together  and  went  to  the  cafe 
for  supper. 


It  was  a  merry,  rowdy  meal  they  had ;  ham  and  eggs 
and  coffee  in  an  upper  room,  with  the  soft  sea  air  blow- 
ing in  on  them  through  open  windows.  Nan  and  Barry 
chattered,  and  Kay  took  his  cheerful  part;  only  Gerda 
sparse  of  word,  was  quiet  and  dreamy,  with  her  blue 
eyes  opened  wide  against  sleep,  for  she  had  not  slept 
until  late  last  night. 

"High  time  she  had  a  holiday,"  Barry  said  of  her. 
"Four  weeks'  grind  in  August — it's  beginning  to  tell 
now." 

Fussy  Barry  was  about  the  child.  As  bad  as 
Frances  Carr  with  Pamela.  Gerda  was  as  strong  as  a 
little  pony  really,  though  she  looked  such  a  small,  white, 
brittle  thing. 

They  got  out  maps  and  schemed  out  roads  and 
routes  over  their  cigarettes.  Then  they  strolled  about 
the  little  town,  exploring  its  alleys  and  narrow  byways 
that  gave  on  the  sea.  The  moon  had  risen  now,  and 
Marazion  was  cut  steeply  in  shadow  and  silver  light, 
and  all  the  bay  lay  in  shadow  and  silver  too,  to  where 
the  lights  of  Penzance  twinkled  like  a  great  lit  church. 

Barry  thought  once,  as  he  had  often  thought  in  the 
past,  "How  brilliant  Nan  is,  and  how  gay.  No  wonder 
she  never  needed  me.  She  needs  no  one,"  and  this  time 
it  did  not  hurt  him  to  think  it.  Pie  loved  to  listen  to 
her,  to  talk  and  laugh  with  her,  to  look  at  her,  but  he 
was  free  at  last;  he  demanded  nothing  of  her.  Those 
restless,  urdng,  disappointed  hopes  and  longings  lay 


142  DANGEROUS  AGES 

dead  in  him,  dead  and  at  peace.  He  could  not  have  put 
his  finger  on  the  moment  of  their  death;  there  had  been 
no  moment;  Hke  good  soldiers  they  had  never  died,  but 
faded  away,  and  till  to-night  he  had  not  known  that 
they  had  gone.  He  would  show  Nan  now  that  she  need 
fear  no  more  pestering  from  him;  she  need  not  keep 
on  talking  without  pause  whenever  they  were  alone 
together,  which  had  been  her  old  way  of  defence,  and 
which  she  was  beginning  again  now.  They  could  drop 
now  into  undisturbed  friendship.  Nan  was  the  most 
stimulating  of  friends.  It  was  refreshing  to  talk  things 
out  with  her  again,  to  watch  her  quick  mind  flashing 
and  turning  and  cutting  its  way,  brilliant,  clear,  sharp, 
like  a  diamond. 

They  went  to  bed;  Barry  and  Kay  to  the  room  they 
had  got  above  a  public  house,  Nan  and  Gerda  to  Nan's 
room  at  the  cafe,  where  they  squeezed  into  one  bed. 

Gerda  slept,  lying  very  straight  and  still,  as  was  her 
habit  in  sleep.  Nan  lay  wakeful  and  restless,  v/atching 
the  moonlight  steal  across  the  floor  and  lie  palely  on  the 
bed  and  on  Gerda's  waxen  face  and  yellow  hair.  The 
pretty,  pale  child,  strange  in  sleep,  like  a  little  mer- 
maiden  lost  on  earth.  Nan,  sitting  up  in  bed,  one  dark 
plait  hanging  over  each  shoulder,  watched  her  with 
brooding  amber  eyes.  How  young  she  was,  how  very, 
very  young.  It  was  touching  to  be  so  young.  Yet 
why,  when  youth  was,  people  said,  the  best  time?  It 
wasn't  really  touching  to  be  young;  it  was  touching  not 
to  be  young,  because  you  had  less  of  life  left.  Touch- 
ing to  be  thirty;  more  touching  to  be  forty;  tragic  to  be 
fifty  and  heartbreaking  to  be  sixty.  As  to  seventy,  as 
to  eighty,  one  would  feel  as  one  did  during  the  last 
dance  of  a  ball,  tired  but  fey  in  the  paling  dawn,  des- 
perately making  the  most  of  each  bar  of  music  be- 
fore one  went  home  to  bed.     That  was  touching;  Mrs. 


NAN  143 

Hilary  and  Grandmama  were  touching.  Not  Gerda 
and  Kay,  with  their  dance  just  beginning. 

A  bore,  this  sharing  one  bed.  You  couldn't  sleep, 
however  small  and  quiet  your  companion  lay.  They 
must  get  a  bed  each,  when  they  could,  during  this  tour. 
One  must  sleep.  If  one  didn't  one  began  ^to  think. 
Every  time  Nan  forced  herself  to  the  edge  of  sleep,  a 
picture  sprang  sharply  before  her  eyes — the  flaming 
sky  and  sea,  herself  and  Barry  standing  together  on  the 
causeway. 

"Aren't  you  glad  you  came?"  Her  own  voice,  soft, 
encouraging. 

"I  should  say  so!"  The  quick,  matter-of-fact 
answer. 

Then  a  pause  and  she  turning  on  him  the  beginnings 
of  a  smile.  An  allowing,  inviting  .  .  .  seductive  .  .  . 
smile. 

And  he,  smiling  too,  but  not  at  her,  looking  away  to 
where  Gerda  and  Kay  walked  bare-legged  to  the 
Mount. 

Flame  scorched  her  again.  The  pause  each  time  she 
saw  it  now  became  longer,  more  deliberate,  more  in- 
viting, more  emptily  unfilled.  Her  smile  became  more 
luring,  his  more  rejecting.  As  she  saw  it  now,  in  the 
cruel,  distorting  night,  he  had  seen  her  permission  and 
refused  it.  By  day  she  had  known  that  simple  Barry 
had  seen  nothing;  by  day  she  would  know  it  again. 
Between  days  are  set  nights  of  white,  searing  flame,  two 
in  a  bed  so  that  one  cannot  sleep.  Damn  Gerda,  lying 
there  so  calm  and  cool.  It  had  been  a  mistake  to  ask 
Gerda  to  come;  if  it  hadn't  been  for  Gerda  they 
wouldn't  have  been  two  in  a  bed. 

"Barry's  a  good  deal  taken  up  with  her  just  now," 
said  Nan  to  herself,  putting  it  into  plain,  deliberate 
words,  as  was  her  habit  with  life's  situations.     "He 


144  DANGEROUS  AGES 

\  does  get  taken  up  with  pretty  girls,  I  suppose,  when  he's 

j  thrown  with  them.     All  men  do,  if  you  come  to  that. 

\  For  the  moment  he's  thinking  about  her,  not  about  me. 

That's  a  bore.     It  will  bore  me  to  death  if  it  goes  on. 

...  I  wonder  how  long  it  wi)]  go  on?    I  wonder  how 

soon  he'll  want  to  make  love  to  me  again?" 

Having  thus  expressed  the  position  in  clear  words. 
Nan  turned  her  mind  elsewhere.  What  do  people 
think  of  when  they  are  seeking  sleep?  It  is  worse  thani 
no  use  to  think  of  what  one  is  writing;  that  wakes  one 
up,  goads  every  brain-cell  into  unwholesome  activity. 
No  use  thinking  of  people;  they  are  too  interesting. 
Nor  of  sheep  going  through  gates;  they  tumble  over 
one  another  and  make  one's  head  ache.  Nor  of  the 
coming  day;  that  is  too  difficult:  nor  of  the  day  which 
is  past;  that  is  too  near.  Wood  paths,  quiet  seas, 
running  streams — these  are  better. 

"Any  lazy  man  can  swim 
Down  the  current  of  a  stream." 

Or  the  wind  in  trees,  or  owls  crying,  or  waves  beating 
on  warm  shores.  The  waves  beat  now;  ran  up 
whisperingly  with  the  incoming  tide,  broke,  andsidled 
back,  dragging  at  the  wet  sand.  .  .  .  Nan,  hearing 
them,  drifted  at  last  into  sleep. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  PACE 


The  coast  road  to  Land's  End  is  like  a  switchback. 
You  climb  a  mountain  and  are  flung  down  to  sea  level 
like  a  shooting  star,  and  climb  a  mountain  again. 
Sometimes  the  road  becomes  a  sandy  cliff  path  and  you 
have  to  walk. 

But  at  last,  climbing  up  and  being  shot  down  and 
walking.  Nan  and  Barry  and  Gerda  and  Kay  reached 
Land's  End.  They  went  down  to  Sennan  Cove  to 
bathe,  and  the  high  sea  was  churning  breakers  on  the 
beach.  Nan  dived  through  them  with  the  arrowy 
straightness  of  a  fish  or  a  submarine,  came  up  behind 
them,  and  struck  out  to  sea.  The  others  behind  her, 
less  skilful,  floundered  and  were  dashed  about  by  the 
waves.  Barry  and  Kay  struggled  through  them  some- 
how, bruised  and  choked;  Gerda,  giving  it  up— she 
was  no  great  swimmer — tranquilly  rolled  and  paddled 
in  the  surf  by  herself. 

Kay  called  to  her,  mocking. 

"Coward.  Sensualist.  Come  over  the  top  hke  a 
man." 

Nan,  turning  to  look  at  her  from  the  high  crest  of  a 
wave,  thought  "Gerda's  afraid  in  a  high  sea.  She  is 
afraid  of  things:  I  remember." 

Nan  herself  was  afraid  of  very  little.  She  had  that 
kind  of  buoyant  physical  gallantry  which  would  take 

145 


146  DANGEROUS  AGES 

her  into  the  jaws  of  danger  with  a  laugh.  When  in 
London  during  the  air  raids  she  had  walked  about  the 
streets  to  see  what  could  be  seen;  in  France  with  the 
Fannys  she  had  driven  cars  over  shelled  roads  with  a 
cool  composure  which  distinguished  her  even  among 
that  remarkably  cool  and  composed  set  of  young 
women ;  as  a  child  she  had  ridden  unbroken  horses  and 
teased  and  dodged  savage  bulls  for  the  fun  of  it;  she 
would  go  sailing  in  seas  that  fishermen  refused  to  go 
out  in;  part  angry  dogs  which  no  other  onlooker  would 
touch;  sleep  out  alone  in  dark  and  lonely  woods,  and 
even  on  occasion  brave  pigs.  The  kind  of  gay  courage 
she  had  was  a  physical  heritage  which  can  never  be^ 
acquired.  What  can  be  acquired,  with  blood  and  tears,; 
is  the  courage  of  the  will,  stubborn  and  unyielding,  but 
always  nerve-racked,  proudly  and  tensely  strung  up. 
Nan's  form  of  fearlessness,  combined  as  it  was  with  the 
agility  of  a  supple  body  excellently  trained,  would  carry 
her  lightly  through  all  physical  adventures,  much  as  her 
arrowy  strength  and  skill  carried  her  through  the 
breakers  without  blundering  or  mishap  and  let  her 
now  ride  buoyantly  on  each  green  mountain  as  it 
towered. 

Barry,  emerging  spluttering  from  one  of  these,  said 
"All  very  jolly  for  you,  Nan.  You're  a  practised  hand. 
We're  being  drowned.  I'm  going  out  of  it,"  and  he 
dived  through  another  wave  for  the  shore.  Kay,  a 
clumsier  swimmer,  followed  him,  and  Nan  rode  her 
tossing  horses,  laughing  at  them,  till  she  was  shot  onto 
the  beach  and  dug  her  fingers  deep  into  the  sucking 
sand. 

"A  very  pretty  landing,"  said  Barry,  generously, 
rubbing  his  bruised  limbs  and  coughing  up  water. 

Gerda  rose  from  the  foam  where  she  had  been  play- 
ing serenely  impervious  to  the  tauntings  of  Kay. 


THE  PACE  147 

Barry  said  "Happy  child.  She's  not  filled  up  with 
salt  water  and  battere  i  black  and  blue." 

Nan  remarked  that  neither  was  she,  and  they  went 
to  their  rock  crannies  to  dress.  They  dressed  and  un- 
dressed in  a  publicity,  a  mixed  shamelessness  that  was 
almost  appalling.  v 

They  rode  back  to  Marazion  after  tea  along  the  high 
road,  more  soberly  than  they  had  come. 

"Tired,  Gerda?"  Barry  said,  at  the  tenth  mile,  as 
they  pulled  up  a  hill.     "Hold  on  to  me." 

Gerda  refused  to  do  so  mean  a  thing.  She  had  her 
own  sense  of  honour,  and  believed  that  everyone  should 
carry  his  or  her  own  burden.  But  when  they  had  to 
get  off  and  walk  up  the  hill  she  let  him  help  to  push  her 
bicycle. 

"Give  us  a  few  days,  Nan,"  said  Barry,  "and  we'll  all 
be  as  fit  as  you.  At  present  we're  fat  and  scant  of 
breath  from  our  sedentary  and  useful  life." 

"Our  life" — as  if  they  had  only  the  one  between 
them. 

At  Newlyn  Nan  stopped.  She  said  she  was  going  to 
supper  with  someone  there  and  would  come  on  later. 
She  was,  in  fact,  tired  of  them.  She  dropped  into 
Stephen  Lumley's  studio,  which  was,  as  usual  after 
painting  hours,  full  of  his  friends,  talking  and  smoking. 
That  was  the  only  way  to  spend  the  evening,  thought 
Nan,  talking  and  smoking  and  laughing,  never  pausing. 
Anyhow  that  was  the  way  she  spent  it. 

She  got  back  to  Marazion  at  ten  o'clock  and  went 
to  her  room  at  the  little  cafe.  Looking  from  its 
window,  she  saw  the  three  on  the  shore  by  the  moonlit 
sea.  Kay  was  standing  on  the  paved  causeway,  and 
Barry  and  Gerda,  some  way  off,  were  wading  among  the 
rocks,  bending  over  the  pools,  as  if  they  were  looking 
for  crabs. 


148  DANGEROUS  AGES 

Nan  went  to  bed.  When  Gerda  came  in  presently, 
she  lay  very  still  and  pretended  to  be  asleep. 

It  was  dreadful,  another  night  of  sharing  a  bed. 
Dreadful  to  lie  so  close  one  to  the  other;  dreadful  to 
touch  accidentally;  touching  people  reminded  you  how 
alive  they  are,  with  their  separate,  conscious  throbbing 
life  so  close  against  yours. 


Next  morning  they  took  the  road  eastward.  They 
were  going  to  ride  along  the  coast  to  Talland  Bay, 
where  they  were  going  to  spend  a  week.  They  were 
giving  themselves  a  week  to  get  there,  which  would 
allow  plenty  of  time  for  bathing  by  the  way.  It  is  no 
use  hurrying  in  Cornwall,  the  hills  are  too  steep  and  the 
sea  too  attractive,  and  lunch  and  tea,  when  ordered  in 
shops,  so  long  in  coming.  The  first  day  they  only  got 
round  the  Lizard  to  Cadgwith,  where  they  dived  from 
steep  rocks  into  deep  blue  water.  Nan  dived  from  a 
high  rock  with  a  swoop  like  a  sea  bird's,  a  pretty  thing 
to  watch.  Barry  was  nearly  as  good;  he  too  was 
physically  proficient.  The  Bendishes  were  less  com- 
petent; they  were  so  much  younger,  as  Barry  said. 
But  they  too  reached  the  water  head  first,  which  is, 
after  all,  the  main  thing  in  diving.  And  as  often  as 
Nan  dived,  with  her  arrowy  swoop,  Gerda  tumbled  in 
too,  from  the  same  rock,  and  when  Nan  climbed  a  yet 
higher  rock  and  dived  again,  Gerda  climbed  too,  and 
fell  in  sprawling  after  her.  Gerda  to-day  was  not  to 
be  outdone,  anyhow  in  will  to  attempt,  whatever  her 
achievement  might  lack.  Nan  looked  up  from  the  sea 
with  a  kind  of  mocking  admiration  at  the  little  figure 
poised  on  the  high  shelf  of  rock,  slightly  unsteady  about 


THE  PACE  149 

the  knees,  slightly  blue  about  the  lips,  thin  white  arms 
pointing  forward  for  the  plunge. 

The  child  had  pluck.  ...  It  must  have  hurt,  too, 
that  slap  on  the  nearly  fiat  body  as  she  struck  the  sea. 
She  hadn't  done  it  well.  She  came  up  with  a  dazed 
look,  shaking  the  water  out  of  her  eyes,  coughing. 

"You're  too  ambitious,"  Barry  told  her.  "That  was 
much  too  high  for  you.  You're  also  blue  with  cold. 
Come  out." 

Gerda  looked  up  at  Nan,  who  was  scrambling  nimbly 
onto  the  highest  ledge  of  all,  crying  "I  must  have  one 
more." 

Barry  said  to  Gerda  "No,  you're  not  going  after  her. 
You're  coming  out.  It's  no  use  thinking  you  can  do  all 
Nan  does.     None  of  us  can." 

Gerda  gave  up.     The  pace  was  too  hard  for  her. 
She  couldn't  face  that  highest  rock;  the  one  below  had 
made  her  feel  cold  and  queer  and  shaky  as  she  stood 
on  it.     Besides,  why  was  she  trying,  for  the  first  time  in 
her  life,  to  go  Nan's  pace,  which  had  always  been,  and 
was  now  more  than  ever  before,  too  hot  and  mettlesome  '\ 
for  her?     She  didn't  know  why;   only  that  Nan  had  ; 
been,  somehow,  all  day  setting  the  pace,  daring  her,  as  \ 
it  were,  to  make  it.     It  was  becoming,  oddly,  a  point  of  ( 
honour  between  them,  and  neither  knew  how  or  why. 


On  the  road  it  was  the  same.  Nan,  with  only  the 
faintest,  if  any  application  of  brakes,  would  commit 
herself  to  lanes  which  leaped  precipitously  downwards 
like  mountain  streams,  zig-zagging  like  a  dog's-tooth 
pattern,  shingled  with  loose  stones,  whose  unseen  end 
might  be  a  village  round  some  sharp  turn,  or  a  cove  by 
the  sea,  or  a  field  path  running  to  a  farm,  or  merely 


150  DANGEROUS  AGES 

the  foot  of  one  hill  and  the  beginning  of  the  steep  pull 
up  the  next.  Coast  roads  in  Cornwall  are  like  that — 
often  uncertain  in  their  ultimate  goal  (for  map-makers, 
like  bicyclists,  are  apt  to  get  tired  of  them,  and,  tiring, 
break  them  off,  so  to  speak,  in  mid-air,  leaving  them 
suspended,  hke  snapped  ends  of  string).  But  how- 
ever uncertain  their  goal  may  be,  their  form  is  not  un- 
certain at  all;  it  can  be  relied  on  to  be  that  of  a  snake 
in  agony  leaping  down  a  hill  or  up;  or,  if  one  prefers 
it,  that  of  a  corkscrew  plunging  downwards  into  a 
cork. 

Nan  leaped  and  plunged  with  them.  She  was  at  the 
bottom  while  the  others  were  still  jolting,  painfully 
brake-held,  albeit  rapidly,  half-way  down.  And  some- 
times, when  the  slope  was  more  than  usually  like  the 
steep  roof  of  a  house,  the  zig-zags  more  than  usually 
acute,  the  end  even  less  than  usually  known,  the  whole 
situation,  in  short,  more  dreadful  and  perilous,  if  pos- 
sible, than  usual,  the  others  surrendered,  got  off  and 
walked.  They  couldn't  really  rely  on  their  brakes  to 
hold  them,  supposing  something  should  swing  round  on 
them  from  behind  one  of  the  corners;  they  couldn't 
be  sure  of  turning  with  the  road  when  it  turned  at  its 
acutest,  and  such  failure  of  harmony  with  one's  road  is 
apt  to  meet  with  a  dreadful  retribution.  Barry  was 
adventurous,  and  Kay  and  Gerda  were  calm,  but  to  all 
of  them  life  was  sweet  and  limbs  and  bicycles  precious; 
none  of  them  desired  an  untimely  end. 

But  Nan  laughed  at  their  prognostications  of  such 
an  end.  "It  will  be  found  impossible  to  ride  down 
these  hills,"  said  their  road  book,  and  Nan  laughed  at 
that  too.  You  can,  as  she  observed,  ride  down  any- 
thing; it  is  riding  up  that  is  the  difficulty.  Anyhow, 
she,  who  had  ridden  bucking  horses  and  mountainous 
seas,  could  ride  down  anything  that  wore  the  semblance 


THE  PACE  151 

of  a  road.  Only  fools,  Nan  believed,  met  with  disasters 
while  bicycling.  And  jamming  on  the  brakes  was  bad 
for  the  wheels  and  tiring  to  the  hands.  So  brakeless, 
she  zig-zagged  like  greased  lightning  to  the  bottom. 

It  was  on  the  second  day,  on  the  long  hjll  that  runs 
from  Manaccan  down  to  Helford  Ferry,  that  Gerda 
suddenly  took  her  brakes  off  and  shot  after  her.  That 
hill  is  not  a  badly  spiralling  one,  but  it  is  long  and  steep 
and  usually  ridden  with  brakes.  And  just  above  Hel- 
ford village  it  has  one  very  sharp  turn  to  the  left. 

Nan,  standing  waiting  for  the  others  on  the  bridge, 
looked  round  and  saw  Gerda  shooting  with  unrestrained 
wheels  and  composed  face  round  the  last  bend.  She 
had  nearly  swerved  over  at  the  turn,  but  not  quite. 
She  got  off  at  the  bridge. 

"Hullo,"  said  Nan.  "Quicker  than  usual,  weren't 
you?"  She  had  a  half-grudging,  half-ironic  grin  of 
appreciation  for  a  fellow  sportsman,  the  same  grin  with 
which  she  had  looked  up  at  her  from  the  sea  at  Cadg- 
with.  Nan  liked  daring.  Though  it  was  in  her,  and 
she  knew  that  it  was  in  her,  to  hate  Gerda  with  a  cold 
and  deadly  anger,  the  sportsman  in  her  gave  its  tribute. 
For  what  was  nothing  and  a  matter  of  ordinary  routine 
to  her,  might  be,  she  suspected,  rather  alarming  to  the 
quiet,  white-faced  child. 

Then  the  demon  of  mischief  leapt  in  her.  If  Gerda 
meant  to  keep  the  pace,  she  should  have  a  pace  worth 
keeping.  They  would  prove  to  one  another  which  was 
the  better  woman,  as  knights  in  single  combat  of  old 
proved  it,  or  fighters  in  the  ring  to-day.  As  to  Barry, 
he  should  look  on  at  it,  whether  he  liked  it  or  not. 

Barry  and  Kay  rushed  up  to  them,  and  they  went 
through  the  little  thatched  rose-sweet  hamlet  to  the 
edge  of  the  broad  blue  estuary  and  shouted  for  the 
ferry. 


152  DANGEROUS  AGES 


After  that  the  game  began  in  earnest.  Nan,  from 
being  casually  and  unconsciously  reckless,  became  de- 
liberately dare-devil  and  always  with  a  backward, 
ironic  look  for  Gerda,  as  if  she  said  "How  about  it? 
Will  this  beat  you?" 

"A  bicycling  tour  with  Nan  isn't  nearly  so  safe  as  the 
front  trenches  of  my  youth  used  to  be,"  Barry  com- 
mented.    "Those  quiet,  comfortable  old  days!" 

There,  indeed,  one  was  likely  to  be  shot,  or  blown  to 
pieces,  or  buried,  or  gassed,  and  that  was  about  all. 
But  life  now  was  like  the  Apostle  Paul's;  they  were 
in  journeyings  often,  in  weariness  often,  in  perils  of 
waters,  in  perils  by  their  own  countrymen,  in  perils  on 
the  road,  in  the  wilderness,  in  the  sea,  in  hunger  and 
thirst,  in  cold  and  nakedness.  In  perils  too,  so  Gerda 
believed,  of  cattle;  for  these  would  stray  in  bellowing 
herds  about  narrow  lanes,  and  they  would  all  charge 
straight  through  them,  missing  the  lowered  horns  by 
some  incredible  fluke  of  fortune.  If  this  seems  to 
make  Gerda  a  coward,  it  should  be  remembered  that  she 
showed  none  of  these  inward  blenchings,  but  went  on 
her  way  with  the  rest,  composed  as  a  little  wax  figure 
at  Madame  Tussaud's.  She  was,  in  fact,  of  the  stuff 
of  which  martyrs  are  made,  and  would  probably  have 
gone  to  the  stake  for  a  conviction.  But  stampeding 
cattle,  and  high  seas,  and  brakeless  lightning  descents, 
she  did  not  like,  however  brave  a  face  she  was  sus- 
tained by  grace  to  meet  them  with.  After  all  she  was 
only  twenty,  an  age  when  some  people  still  look  be- 
neath their  beds  before  retiring. 

Bulls,  even,  Gerda  was  called  upon  to  face,  in  the 
wake  of  two  unafraid  m^.les  and  a  reckless  aunt.     What 


THE  PACE  153 

young  female  of  twenty,  always  excepting  those  who 
have  worked  on  the  land,  and  whose  chief  reward  is 
familiarity  with  its  beasts,  can  with  complete  equanimi- 
ty face  bulls?  One  day  a  path  they  were  taking  down 
to  the  sea  ran  for  a  while  along  the  top  of  a  stone 
hedge,  about  five  feet  high  and  three  feet  \^ide.  Most 
people  would  have  walked  along  this,  leading  their  bi- 
cycles. Nan,  naturally,  bicycled,  and  Barry  and  Kay, 
finding  it  an  amusing  experiment,  bicycled  after  her. 
Gerda,  in  honour  bound,  bicycled  too.  She  accepted 
stoically  the  probability  that  she  would  very  soon  bi- 
cycle off  the  hedge  into  the  field  and  be  hurt.  In  the 
fields  on  either  side  of  them,  cows  stared  at  them  in 
mild  surprise  and  some  disdain,  coming  up  close  to 
look.  So,  if  one  bicycled  off,  it  would  be  into  the  very 
jaws,  onto  the  very  horns,  of  cattle.  Female  cattle,  in- 
deed, but  cattle  none  the  less. 

Then  Kay  chanted  "Fat  bulls  of  Basan  came  round 
about  me  on  either  side,"  and  it  was  just  like  that. 
One  fat  bull  at  least  trotted  up  to  the  hedge,  waving  his 
tail  and  snorting,  pawing  and  glaring,  evincing,  in  short, 
all  the  symptoms  common  to  his  kind. 

So  now  if  one  bicycled  off  it  would  be  into  the  very 
maw  of  an  angry  bull. 

"You  look  out  you  don't  fall,  Gerda,"  Kay  flung 
back  at  her  over  his  shoulder.  "It  will  be  to  a  dread- 
ful death,  as  you  see.  Nobody '11  save  you;  nobody '11 
dare." 

"Feeling  unsteady?"  Barry's  gentler  voice  asked  her 
from  behind.     "Get  off  and  walk  it.     I  will  too." 

But  Gerda  rode  on,  her  eyes  on  Nan's  swift,  sure 
progress  ahead.  Barry  should  not  see  her  mettle  fail; 
Barry,  who  had  been  through  the  w^ar  and  would  de- 
spise cowards. 

They  reached  the  end  of  tlie  hedge,  and  the  path  ran 


154  DANGEROUS  AGES 

off  it  into  a  field.  And  between  this  field  and  the  last 
one  there  was  an  open  gap,  through  which  the  bull  of 
Basan  lumbered  with  fierce  eyes  and  stood  waiting  for 
them  t(7  descend. 

"I  don't  like  that  creature,"  Kay  said.  "I'm  afraid 
of  him.     Aren't  you,  Barry?" 

"Desperately,"  Barry  admitted.  "Anyone  would  be, 
except  Nan,  of  course." 

Nan  was  bicycling  straight  along  the  field  path,  and 
the  bull  stood  staring  at  her,  his  head  well  down,  in 
readiness,  as  Gerda  saw,  to  charge.  But  he  did  not 
charge  Nan.  Bulls  and  other  ferocious  beasts  think 
it  waste  of  time  to  charge  the  fearless;  they  get  no  fun 
out  of  an  un frightened  victim.  He  waited  instead  for 
Gerda,  as  she  knew  he  would  do. 

Kay  followed  Nan,  still  chanting  his  psalm.  Gerda 
followed  Kay.  As  she  dropped  from  the  hedge  onto 
the  path  she  turned  round  once  and  met  Barry's  eyes, 
her  own  wide  and  grave,  and  she  was  thinking  "I  can 
bear  anything  if  he  is  behind  me  and  sees  it  happen, 
I  couldn't  bear  it  if  I  were  the  last  and  no  one  saw." 
To  be  gored  all  alone,  none  to  care  .  .  .  who  could  bear 
that? 

The  next  moment  Barry  was  no  longer  behind  her, 
but  close  at  her  side,  bicycling  on  the  grass  by  the  path, 
between  her  and  the  bull.  Did  he  know  she  was 
frightened?     She  hadn't  shown  it,  surely, 

"The  wind,"  said  Gerda,  in  her  clear,  small  crystal- 
line voice,  "has  gone  round  more  to  the  south.  Don't 
you  think  so?"  And  reminded  Barry  of  a  French 
aristocrat  demoiselle  going  with  calm  and  polite  con- 
versation to  the  scaffold, 

"I  believe  it  has,"  he  said,  and  smiled. 

And  after  all  the  bull,  perhaps  not  liking  the  look  of 
the  bicycles,  didn't  charge  at  all,  but  only  ran  by  their 


THE  PACE  155 

sides  with  snorting  noises  until  they  left  him  behind 
at  the  next  gate. 

"Did  you,"  enquired  Gerda,  casually,  "notice  that 
bull?     He  was  an  awfully  fine  one,  wasn't  he?" 

"A  remarkably  noble  face,  I  thought,"  Kay  re- 
turned. ' 

They  scrambled  down  cliffs  to  the  cove  and  bathed. 


Nan,  experienced  in  such  things,  as  one  is  at  the  age 
of  thirty-three  if  one  has  led  a  well-spent  life,  knew 
now  beyond  peradventure  what  had  happened  to  Barry 
and  what  would  never  happen  again  between  him  and 
her.  So  that  was  that,  as  she  put  it,  definite  and  matter- 
of-fact  to  herself  about  it.  He  had  stopped  wanting 
her.  Well  then,  she  must  stop  wanting  him,  as  speedi- 
ly as  might  be.  It  took  a  little  time.  You  could  not^^j 
shoot  down  the  hills  of  the  emotions  with  the  lightning  / 
rapidity  with  which  you  shot  down  the  roads.  Also,  < 
the  process  was  excruciatingly  painful.  You  had  to  j 
unmake  so  many  plans,  unthink  so  many  thoughts.  .  .  . 
Oh,  but  that  was  nothing.  You  had  to  hear  his  voice 
softened  to  someone  else,  see  the  smile  in  his  eyes 
caressing  someone  else,  feel  his  whole  mind,  his  whole 
soul,  reaching  out  in  protecting,  adoring  care  to  some- 
one else's  charm  and  loveliness  .  .  .  as  once,  as  so 
lately,  they  had  reached  out  to  yours.  .  .  .  That  was 
torture  for  the  bravest,  far  worse  than  any  bulls  or  seas 
or  precipices  could  be  to  Gerda.  Yet  it  had  to  be  gone 
through,  as  Gerda  had  to  leap  from  towering  cliffs  into 
wild  seas  and  ride  calmly  among  fierce  cattle.  .  .  , 
When  Nan  woke  in  the  night  it  was  like  toothache,  a 
sharp,  gnawing,  searing  hell  of  pain.     Memory  choked 


156  DANGEROUS  AGES 

her,  bitter  self-anger  for  joy  once  rejected  and  then  for- 
ever lost  took  her  by  the  throat,  present  desolation 
drowned  her  soul  in  hard,  slow  tears,  jealousy  scorched 
and  seared. 

But,  now  every  morning,  pride  rose,  mettlesome  and 
gallant,  making  her  laugh  and  talk,  so  that  no  one 
guessed.  And  with  pride,  a  more  reckless  physical 
daring  than  usual;  a  kind  of  scornful  adventurousness, 
that  courted  danger  for  its  own  sake,  and  wordlessly 
taunted  the  weaker  spirit  with  'Tollow  if  you  like  and 
can.  If  you  don't  like,  if  you  can't,  I  am  the  better 
woman  in  that  way,  though  you  may  be  the  beloved." 
And  the  more  the  mettle  of  the  little  beloved  rose  to 
meet  the  challenge,  the  hotter  the  pace  grew.  Per- 
haps they  both  felt,  without  knowing  they  felt  it,  that 
there  was  something  in  Barry  which  leaped  instinc- 
tively out  to  applaud  reckless  courage,  some  element  in 
himself  which  responded  to  it  even  while  he  called  it 
foolhardy.  You  could  tell  that  Barry  was  of  that  type, 
by  the  quick  glow  of  his  eyes  and  smile.  But  the 
rivalry  in  daring  was  not  really  for  Barry;  Barry's 
choice  was  made.  It  was  at  bottom  the  last  test  of 
mettle,  the  ultimate  challenge  from  the  loser  to  the 
winner,  in  the  lists  chosen  by  the  loser  as  her  own.  It 
was  also — for  Nan  was  something  of  a  bully — the 
heckling  of  Gerda.  She  might  have  won  one  game,  and 
that  the  most  important,  but  she  should  be  forced  to 
own  herself  beaten  in  another,  after  being  dragged 
painfully  along  rough  and  dangerous  ways.  And  over 
and  above  and  beyond  all  this,  beyond  rivalry  and  be- 
yond Gerda,  was  the  eternal  impatience  for  adventure 
as  such,  for  quick,  vehement  living,  which  was  the  es- 
sence of  Nan.  She  found  things  more  fun  that  way: 
that  summed  it. 


THE  PACE  157 


The  long  strange  days  slid  by  like  many-coloured 
dreams.  The  steep  tumbling  roads  tilted  behind  them, 
with  their  pale,  old,  white  and  slate  hamlets  huddled  be- 
tween fields  above  a  rock-bound  sea.  Sometimes  they 
would  stop  early  in  the  day  at  some  fishing  village,  find 
rooms  there  for  the  night,  and  bathe  and  sail  till  eve- 
ning. When  they  bathed.  Nan  would  swim  far  out  to 
sea,  striking  through  cold,  green,  heaving  waters,  slip- 
ping cleverly  between  currents,  numbing  thought  with 
bodily  action,  drowning  emotion  in  the  sea. 

Once  they  were  all  caught  in  a  current  and  a  high 
sea  and  swept  out,  and  had  to  battle  for  the  shore. 
Even  Nan,  even  Barry,  could  not  get  to  the  cove  from 
which  they  had  bathed;  all  they  could  try  for  was  the 
jut  of  rocks  to  westward  toward  which  the  seas  were 
sweeping,  and  to  reach  this  meant  a  tough  fight. 

"Barry!" 

Nan,  looking  over  her  shoulder,  saw  Gerda's  bluing 
face  and  wide  staring  eyes  and  quickening,  flurried 
strokes.  Saw,  too,  Barry  at  once  at  her  side,  heard  his 
"All  right,  I'm  here.     Catch  hold  of  my  shoulder." 

In  a  dozen  strokes  Nan  reached  them,  and  was  at 
Gerda's  other  side. 

"Put  one  hand  on  each  of  us  and  strike  for  all  you're 
worth  with  your  legs.     That's  the  way.  .  .  ." 

Numbly  Gerda's  two  hands  gripped  Barry's  right 
shoulder  and  Nan's  left.  Between  them  they  pulled 
her,  her  slight  weight  dragging  at  them  heavily,  help- 
ing the  running  sea  against  them.  They  were  being 
swept  westward  towards  the  rocks,  but  swept  also  out- 
wards, beyond  them;  they  struck  northward  and  north- 
ward and  were  carried  always  south.     It  was  a  close 


158  DANGEROUS  AGES 

thing  between  their  swimming  and  the  current,  and  it 
looked  as  though  the  current  was  winning. 

"It'll  have  to  be  all  we  know  now,"  said  Nan,  as 
they  struggled  ten  yards  from  the  point. 

She  and  Barry  both  rather  thought  that  probably 
it  would  be  all  they  knew  and  just  the  little  more  they 
didn't  know — they  would  be  swept  round  the  point 
well  to  the  south  of  the  outermost  rock — and  then,  hey 
for  open  sea! 

But  their  swimming  proved,  in  this  last  fierce  minute 
of  the  struggle,  stronger  than  the  sea.  They  were 
swept  towards  the  jutting  point,  almost  round  it,  when 
Nan,  flinging  forward  to  the  right,  caught  a  slippery 
ledge  of  rock  with  her  two  hands  and  held  on.  Barry 
didn't  think  she  could  hold  on  for  more  than  a  second 
against  the  swinging  seas,  or,  if  she  did,  could  con- 
solidate her  position.  But  he  did  not  know  the  full 
power  of  Nan's  trained,  acrobatic  body.  Slipping  her 
shoulder  from  Gerda's  clutch,  she  grasped  instead 
Gerda's  right  hand  in  her  left,  and  with  her  other  arm 
and  with  all  her  sinuous,  wiry  strength,  heaved  herself 
onto  the  rock  and  there  flung  her  body  flat,  reaching  out 
her  free  hand  to  Barry.  Barry  caught  it  just  in  time, 
as  he  was  being  swung  on  a  wave  outwards,  and  pulled 
himself  within  grip  of  the  rock,  and  in  another  moment 
he  lay  beside  her,  and  between  them  they  hauled  up 
Gerda. 

Gerda  gasped  "Kay,"  and  they  saw  him  struggling 
twenty  yards  behind. 

"Can  you  do  it?"  Barry  shouted  to  him,  and  Kay 
grinned  back. 

"Let  you  know  presently.  ...  Oh  yes,  I'm  all  right. 
Getting  on  fine." 

Nan  stood  up  on  the  rock,  watching  him,  measuring 
with  expert  eye  the  ratio  between  distance  and  pace. 


THE  PACE  159 

the  race  between  Kay's  swimming  and  the  sea.  It 
seemed  to  her  to  be  anyone's  race. 

Barry  didn't  stand  up.  The  strain  of  the  swim  had 
been  rather  too  much  for  him,  and  in  his  violent  lurch 
onto  the  rock  he  had  strained  his  side.  He  lay  flat, 
feeling  battered  and  sick.  ^ 

The  sea,  Nan  judged  after  another  minute  of  watch- 
ing, was  going  to  beat  Kay  in  this  race.  For  Kay's 
face  had  turned  a  curious  colour,  and  he  was  blue 
round  the  lips.     Kay's  heart  was  not  strong. 

Nan's  dive  into  the  tossing  waves  was  as  pretty  a 
thing  as  one  would  wish  to  see.  The  swoop  of  it 
carried  her  nearly  to  Kay's  side.  Coming  up  she 
caught  one  of  his  now  rather  limp  hands  and  put  it  on 
her  left  shoulder,  saying  "Hold  tight.  A  few  strokes 
will  do  it." 

Kay,  who  was  no  fool  and  who  had  known  that  he 
was  beaten,  held  tight,  throwing  all  his  exhausted 
strength  into  striking  out  with  his  other  three  limbs. 

They  were  carried  round  the  point,  beyond  reach  of 
it  had  not  Barry's  outstretched  hand  been  ready.  Nan 
touched  it,  barely  grasped  it,  just  and  no  more,  as 
they  were  swung  seawards.  It  was  enough.  It  pulled 
them  to  the  rock's  side.  Again  Nan  wriggled  and 
scrambled  up,  and  then  they  dragged  Kay  heavily  after 
them  as  he  fainted. 

"Neat,"  said  Barry  to  Nan,  his  appreciation  of  a 
well-handled  job,  his  love  of  spirit  and  skill,  rising  as 
it  were  to  cheer,  in  spite  of  his  exhaustion  and  his  con- 
cern for  Gerda  and  Kay.  "jMy  word,  Nan,  you're  a 
sportsman." 

"He  does  faint  sometimes,"  said  Gerda  of  Kay. 
"He'll  be  all  right  in  a  minute." 

Kay  cnme  to. 

"Oh  Lord,"  he  said,  "that  was  a  bit  of  a  grind."    And 


i6o  DANGEROUS  AGES 

then,  becoming  garrulous  with  the  weak  and  fatuous 
garrulity  of  those  who  have  recently  swooned, 
"Couldn't  have  done  it  without  you,  Nan.  I'd  given 
myself  up  for  lost.  All  my  past  life  went  by  me  in  a 
flash.  ...  I  really  did  think  it  was  U.  P.  with  me,  you 
know.  And  it  jolly  nearly  was,  for  all  of  us,  wasn't 
it?  .  .  .  Whose  idea  was  it  bathing  just  here?  Yours, 
Nan.  Of  course.  It  would  be.  No  wonder  you  felt 
our  lives  on  your  conscience  and  had  to  rescue  us  all. 
Oh  Lord,  the  water  I've  drunk!     I  do  feel  rotten." 

"We  all  look  pretty  rotten,  I  must  say,"  Nan  com- 
mented, looking  from  Kay's  limp  greenness  to  Gerda's 
shivering  blueness,  from  Gerda  to  Barry,  prostrate, 
bruised  and  coughing,  from  Barry  to  her  own  cut  and 
battered  knees  and  elbows,  bleeding  with  the  unac- 
countable profuseness  of  limbs  cut  by  rocks  in  the  sea. 
"I  may  die  from  loss  of  blood,  and  the  rest  of  you 
from  prostration,  and  all  of  us  from  cold.  Are  we  well 
enough  to  scale  the  rocks  now  and  get  to  our  clothes?" 

"We're  not  well  enough  for  anything,"  Barry  re- 
turned. "But  we'd  better  do  it.  We  don't  want  to  die 
here,  with  the  sea  washing  over  us  in  this  damp  way." 

They  climbed  weakly  up  to  the  top  of  the  rock 
promontory,  and  along  it  till  they  dropped  down  into 
the  little  cove.  They  all  felt  beaten  and  limp,  as  if 
they  had  been  playing  a  violent  but  not  heating  game 
of  football.     Even  Nan's  energy  was  drained. 

Gerda  said  with  chattering  teeth,  as  she  and  Nan 
dressed  in  their  rocky  corner,  "I  suppose,  Nan,  if  it 
hadn't  been  for  you  and  Barry,  I'd  have  drowned." 

"Well,  I  suppose  perhaps  you  would.  If  you  come 
to  think  of  it,  we'd  most  of  us  be  dying  suddenly  half 
the  time  if  it  weren't  for  something — some  chance  or 
other." 

Gerda  said  "Thanks  awfullv,  Nan,"  in  her  direct, 


THF  PACE  i6i 

childlike  way,  and  Nan  turned  it  off  with  "You  might 
have  thanked  me  if  you  had  drowned,  seeing  it  was  my 
fault  we  bathed  there  at  all.  I  ought  to  have  known  it 
wasn't  safe  for  you  or  Kay." 

Looking  at  the  little  fragile  figure  shivering  in  its 
vest,  Nan  felt  in  that  moment  no  malice,  no  triumph, 
no  rivalry,  no  jealous  anger ;  nothing  bul  the  protecting 
care  for  the  smaller  and  weaker,  for  Neville's  little 
pretty,  precious  child  that  she  had  felt  when  Gerda's 
hand  clutched  her  shoulder  in  the  sea. 

"Life-saving  seems  to  soften  the  heart,"  she  re- 
flected, grimly,  conscious  as  always  of  her  own  re- 
actions. 

"Well,"  said  Kay  weakly,  as  they  climbed  up  the 
cliff  path  to  the  little  village,  "I  do  call  that  a  rotten 
bathe.  Now  let's  make  for  the  pub  and  drink 
whiskey." 


It  was  three  days  later.  They  had  spent  an  after- 
noon and  a  night  at  Polperro,  and  the  sun  shone  in  the 
morning  on  that  incredible  place  as  they  rode  out  of 
it  after  breakfast.  Polperro  shakes  the  soul  and  the 
ccsthetic  nerves  like  a  glass  of  old  wine;  no  one  can 
survey  it  unmoved,  or  leave  it  as  he  entered  it,  any 
more  than  you  can  come  out  of  a  fairy  ring  as  you 
went  in.  In  the  afternoon  they  had  bathed  in  the  rock 
pools  along  the  coast.  In  the  evening  the  moon  had 
magically  gleamed  on  the  little  town,  and  Barry  and 
Gerda  had  sat  together  on  the  beach  watching  it,  and 
then  in  the  dawn  they  had  risen  (Barry  and  Gerda 
again)  and  rowed  out  in  a  boat  to  watch  the  pilchard 
haul,  returning  at  breakfast  time  sleepy,  fishy  and 
bright-eyed. 


1 62  DANGEROUS  AGES 

As  they  climbed  the  steep  hill  path  that  leads  to  Tal- 
land,  the  sun  danced  on  the  little  harbour  with  its 
fishing-boats  and  its  sad,  crowding,  crying  gulls,  and 
on  the  huddled  white  town  with  its  narrow  crooked 
streets  and  overhanging  houses:  Polperro  had  the  eerie 
beauty  of  a  dream  or  of  a  little  foreign  port. 
Such  beauty  and  charm  are  on  the  edge  of  pain; 
you  cannot  disentangle  them  from  it.  They  intoxi- 
cate, and  pierce  to  tears.  The  warm  morning  sun 
sparkled  on  a  still  blue  sea,  and  burned  the  gorse  and 
bracken  by  the  steep  path's  edge  to  fragrance.  So 
steep  the  path  was  that  they  had  to  push  their  bi- 
cycles up  it  with  bent  backs  and  labouring  steps,  so 
narrow  that  they  had  to  go  in  single  file.  It  was  never 
meant  for  cyclists,  only  for  walkers;  the  bicycling 
road  ran  far  inland. 

They  reached  the  cliff's  highest  point,  and  looked 
down  on  Talland  Bay.  By  the  side  of  the  path,  on  a 
grass  plateau,  a  stone  war-cross  reared  grey  against  a 
blue  sky,  with  its  roll  of  names,  and  its  comment — 
"True  love  by  life,  true  love  by  death  is  tried.  .  .  ." 

The  path,  become  narrower,  rougher  and  more  wind- 
ing, plunged  sharply,  steeply  downwards,  running 
perilously  along  the  cliff's  edge.  Nan  got  on  her  bi- 
cycle. 

Barry  called  from  the  rear,  "Nan!  It  can't  be  done! 
It's  not  rideable.  .  .  .  Don't  be  absurd." 

Nan,  remarking  casually  "It'll  be  rideable  if  I  ride 
it,"  began  to  do  so. 

"Madwoman,"  Barry  said,  and  Kay  assured  him, 
"Nan'll  be  all  right.  No  one  else  would,  but  she's  got 
nine  lives,  you  know." 

Gerda  came  next  behind  Nan.  For  a  moment  she 
paused,  dubiously,  watching  Nan's  flying,  brakeless 
progress  down  the  wild  ribbon  of  a  footpath,  between 


THE  PACE  163 

the  hill  and  the  sea.  A  false  swerve,  a  failure  to  turn 
with  the  path,  and  one  would  fly  off  the  cliff's  edge  into 
space,  fall  down  perhaps  to  the  blue  rock  pools  far 
below. 

To  refuse  Nan's  lead  now  would  be  to  fail  again 
in  pluck  and  skill  before  Barry,  "My  word,  Nan, 
you're  a  sportsman ! "  Barry  had  said,^coughing  weak- 
ly on  the  rock  onto  which  Nan  had  dragged  them  all 
out  of  the  sea.  That  phrase,  and  the  ring  in  his 
hoarse  voice  as  he  said  it,  had  stayed  with  Gerda. 

She  got  onto  her  bicycle,  and  shot  off  down  the  pre- 
cipitous path. 

"My  God!"  It  was  Barry's  voice  again,  from  the 
rear.  "Stop,  Gerda  .  .  .  oh,  you  little  fool.  .  .  . 
Stop.  .  .  ." 

But  it  was  too  late  for  Gerda  to  stop  then  if  she  had 
tried.  She  was  in  full  career,  rushing,  leaping,  jolting 
over  the  gorse  roots  under  the  path,  past  thought  and 
past  hope  and  oddly  past  fear,  past  anything  but  the 
knowledge  that  what  Nan  did  she  too  must  do. 
Strangely,  inaptly,  the  line  of  verse  she  had  just  read 
sung  itself  in  her  mind  as  she  rushed. 

"True  love  by  life,  true  love  by  death  is  tried.  .  .  ." 

She  took  the  first  sharp  turn,  and  the  second.  The 
third,  a  right  angle  bending  inward  from  the  cliff's  very 
edge,  she  did  not  take.  She  dashed  on  instead,  straight 
into  space,  like  a  young  Phoebus  riding  a  horse  of  the 
morning  through  the  blue  air. 


8 

Nan,  far  ahead,  nearly  on  the  level,  heard  the  crash 
and  heard  voices  crying  out.  Jamming  on  her  brakes 
she  jumped  off;  looked  back  up  the  precipitous  path; 


1 64  DANGEROUS  AGES 

saw  nothing  but  its  windings.  She  left  her  bicycle  at 
the  path's  side  and  turned  and  ran  up.  Rounding  a 
sharp  bend,  she  saw  them  at  last  above  her;  Barry 
and  Kay  scrambling  furiously  down  the  side  of  the 
cliff,  and  below  them,  on  a  ledge  half-way  down  to  the 
sea,  a  tangled  heap  that  was  Gerda  and  her  bicycle. 

The  next  turn  of  the  path  hid  them  from  sight  again. 
But  in  two  minutes  she  had  reached  the  place  where 
their  two  bicycles  lay  flung  across  the  path,  and  was 
scrambling  after  them  down  the  cliff. 

When  she  reached  them  they  had  disentangled  Gerda 
and  the  bicycle,  and  Barry  held  Gerda  in  his  arms. 
She  was  unconscious,  and  a  cut  in  her  head  was  bleed- 
ing, darkening  her  yellow  hair,  trickling  over  her 
colourless  face.  Her  right  leg  and  her  left  arm  lay 
stiff  and  oddly  twisted. 

Barry,  his  face  drawn  and  tense,  said  "We  must  get 
her  up  to  the  path  before  she  comes  to,  if  possible.  It'll 
hurt  like  hell  if  she's  conscious." 

They  had  all  learnt  how  to  help  their  fellow  creatures 
in  distress,  and  how  you  must  bind  broken  limbs  to 
splints  before  you  move  their  owner  so  much  as  a  yard. 
The  only  splint  available  for  Gerda's  right  leg  was  her 
left,  and  they  bound  it  tightly  to  this  with  three  hand- 
kerchiefs, then  tied  her  left  arm  to  her  side  with  Nan's 
stockings,  and  used  the  fourth  handkerchief  (which 
was  Gerda's,  and  the  cleanest)  for  her  head.  She  came 
to  before  the  arm  was  finished,  roused  to  pained  con- 
sciousness by  the  splinting  process,  and  lay  with 
clenched  teeth  and  wet  forehead,  breathing  sharply  but 
making  no  other  sound. 

Then  Barry  lifted  her  in  his  arms  and  the  others  sup- 
ported her  on  either  side,  and  they  climbed  slowly  and 
gently  up  to  the  path,  not  by  the  sheer  way  of  their 


THE  PACE  165 

descent  but  by  a  diagonal  track  that  joined  the  path 
further  down. 

"I'm  sorry,  darling,"  Barry  said  through  his  teeth 
when  he  jolted  her.  "I'm  frightfully  sorry.  .  .  .  Only 
a  little  more  now." 

They  reached  the  path  and  Barry  vlaid  her  down  on 
the  grass  by  its  side,  her  head  supported  on  Nan's  knee. 

"Very  bad,  isn't  it?"  said  Barry  gently,  bending  over 
her. 

She  smiled  up  at  him,  with  twisted  lips. 

"Not  so  bad,  really." 

"You  little  sportsman,"  said  Barry,  softly  and  stoop^ 
ing,  he  kissed  her  pale  cheek. 

Then  he  stood  up  and  spoke  to  Nan. 

"I'm  going  to  fetch  a  doctor  if  there's  one  in  Talland. 
Kay  must  ride  back  and  fetch  the  Polperro  doctor,  in 
case  there  isn't.  In  any  case  I  shall  bring  up  help 
and  a  stretcher  from  Talland  and  have  her  taken 
down." 

He  picked  up  his  bicycle  and  stood  for  a  moment 
lookmg  down  at  the  face  on  Nan's  knee. 

"\'ou'll  look  after  her,"  he  said,  quickly,  and  got  on 
the  bicycle  and  dashed  down  the  path,  showing  that 
he  too  could  do  that  fool's  trick  if  it  served  any  good 
purpose. 

Gerda,  watching  him,  caught  her  breath  and  forgot 
pain  in  fear  until,  swerving  round  the  next  bend,  he 
was  out  of  sight. 


Nan  sat  very  still  by  the  path,  staring  over  the  sea, 
shading  Gerda's  head  from  the  sun.  There  was  noth- 
ing more  to  be  done  than  that;  there  was  no  water, 
even,  to  bathe  the  cut  with. 


1 66  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"Nan." 

"Yes?" 

"Am  I  much  hurt?    How  much  hurt,  do  you  think?" 

"I  don't  know  how  much.  I  think  the  arm  is  broken. 
The  leg  may  be  only  sprained.  Then  there's  the  cut — 
I  daresay  that  isn't  very  much — but  one  can't  tell  that." 

"I  must  have  come  an  awful  mucker,"  Gerda  mur- 
mured, after  a  pause.  "It  must  have  looked  silly, 
charging  over  the  edge  like  that.  .  .  .  You  didn't." 

"No.    I  didn't." 

"It  was  stupid,"  Gerda  breathed,  and  shut  her  eyes. 

"No,  not  stupid.  Anyone  might  have.  It  was  a 
risky  game  to  try." 

"You  tried  it." 

"Oh,  I  ...  I  do  try  things.  That's  no  reason  why 
you  should.  .  .  .  You'd  better  not  talk.  Lie  quite 
quiet.  It  won't  be  very  long  now  before  they  come. 
.  .  .  The  pain's  bad,  I  know." 

Gerda's  head  was  hot  and  felt  giddy.  She  moved 
it  restlessly.  Urgent  thoughts  pestered  her;  her  nor- 
mal reticences  lay  like  broken  fences  about  her. 

^^Nan." 

"Yes.    Shall  I  raise  your  head  a  little?" 

"No,  it's  all  right.  .  .  .  About  Barry,  Nan." 

Nan  grew  rigid,  strung  up  to  endure. 

"And  what  about  Barry?" 

"Just  that  I  love  him.  I  love  him  very  much;  be- 
yond anything  in  the  world." 

"Yes.    You'd  better  not  talk,  all  the  same." 

"Nan,  do  you  love  him  too?" 

Nan  laughed,  a  queer  little  curt  laugh  in  her  throat. 

"Rather  a  personal  question,  don't  you  think?  Sup- 
pose, by  any  chance  that  I  did?    But  of  course  I  don't." 

"But  doesn't  he  love  you,  Nan?    He  did,  didn't  he?" 

"My  dear,  I  think  you're  rather  delirious.    This  isn't 


THE  PACE  167 

the  way  one  talks.  .  .  .  You'd  better  ask  Barry  the 
state  of  his  affections,  since  you're  interested  in  them. 
I'm  not,  particularly." 

Gerda  drew  a  long  breath,  of  pain  or  fatigue  or 
relief. 

s 

''I'm  rather  glad  you  don't  care  for  him.  I  thought 
we  might  have  shared  him  if  you  had,  and  if  he'd  cared 
for  us  both.    But  it  might  have  been  difficult." 

"It  might;  you  never  know.  .  .  .  Well,  you're  wel- 
come to  my  share,  if  you  want  it." 

Then  Gerda  lay  quiet,  with  closed  eyes  and  wet 
forehead,  and  concentrated  wholly  on  her  right  leg, 
which  was  hurting  badly. 

Nan  too  sat  quiet,  and  she  too  was  concentrating. 

Irrevocably  it  was  over  now;  done,  finished  with. 
Barry's  eyes,  Barry's  kiss,  had  told  her  that.  Gerda, 
the  lovely,  the  selfish  child,  had  taken  Barry  from  her, 
to  keep  for  always.  Walked  into  Barry's  office,  into 
Barry's  life,  and  deliberately  stolen  him.  Thinking, 
she  said,  that  they  might  share  him.  .  .  .  The  little 
fool.  Thelittle  thief.  (She  waved  the  flies  away  from 
Gerda 's  head.T 

And  even  this  other  game,  this  contest  of  physical 
prowess,  had  ended  in  a  hollow,  mocking  victory  for 
the  winner,  since  defeat  had  laid  the  loser  more  utterly 
in  her  lover's  arms,  more  unshakably  in  his  heart. 
Gerda,  defeated  and  broken,  had  won  everything.  Won 
even  that  tribute  which  had  been  Nan's  owti.  "You 
httle  sportsman,"  Barry  had  called  her,  with  a  break 
of  tenderness  in  his  voice.  Even  that,  even  the  palm 
for  valour,  he  had  placed  in  her  hands.  The  little 
victor.  The  greedy  little  grabber  of  other  people's 
things.  ... 

Gerda  moaned  at  last. 


1 68  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"Only  a  little  longer,"  said  Nan,  and  laid  her  hand 
lightly  and  coolly  on  the  hot  wet  forehead. 

The  little  winner  .  .  .  damn  her.  .  .  . 

The  edge  of  a  smile,  half-ironic,  wholly  bitter, 
twisted  at  Nan's  lips. 


10 


Voices  and  steps.  Barry  and  a  doctor,  Barry  and  a 
stretcher,  Barry  and  all  kinds  of  help.  Barry's  anxious 
eyes  and  smile.    "Well?    How's  she  been?" 

He  was  on  his  knees  beside  her. 

"Here's  the  doctor,  darling.  .  .  .  I'm  sorry  I've  been 
so  long." 


CHAPTER  X 


PRINCIPLES 


Through  the  late  September  and  October  days  Gerda 
would  lie  on  a  wicker  couch  in  the  conservatory  at 
Windover,  her  sprained  leg  up,  her  broken  wrist  on  a 
splint,  her  mending  head  on  a  soft  pillow,  and  eat  pears. 
Grapes  too,  apples,  figs,  chocolates  of  course — but  par- 
ticularly pears.  She  also  wrote  verse,  and  letters  to 
Barry,  and  drew  in  pen  and  ink,  and  read  Sir  Leo 
Chiozza  Money's  "Triumph  of  Nationalisation"  and 
Mrs.  Snowden  on  Bolshevik  Russia,  and  "Lady  Adela." 
and  "Coterie,"  and  listened  while  Neville  read  Mr.  W. 
H.  Mallock's  "Memoirs"  and  Disraeli's  "Life."  Her 
grandmother  (Rodney's  mother)  sent  her  "The  Diary 
of  Opal  Whiteley,"  but  so  terrible  did  she  find  it  that  it 
caused  a  relapse,  and  Neville  had  to  remove  it.  She 
occasionally  struggled  in  vain  with  a  modern  novel, 
which  she  usually  renounced  in  perplexity  after  three 
chapters  or  so.    Her  taste  did  not  lie  in  this  direction. 

"I  can't  understand  what  they're  all  about,"  she 
said  to  Neville.  "Poetr}^  means  something.  It's  about 
something  real,  something  that  really  is  so.  So  are 
books  like  this — "  she  indicated  "The  Triumph  of  Na- 
tionalisation." "But  most  novels  are  so  queer.  They're 
about  people,  but  not  people  as  they  are.  They're  not 
interesting." 

"Not  as  a  rule,  certainly.    Occasionally  one  gets  an 

169 


lyo  DANGEROUS  AGES 

idea  out  of  one  of  them,  or  a  laugh,  or  a  thrill.  Now 
and  then  they  express  life,  or  reality,  or  beauty,  in  some 
terms  or  other — but  not  as  a  rule." 

Gerda  was  different  from  Kay,  who  devoured 
thrillers,  shockers,  and  ingenious  crime  and  mystery 
stories  with  avidity.  She  did  not  believe  that  hfe  was 
really  much  like  that,  and  Kay's  assertion  that  if  it 
weren't  it  ought  to  be,  she  rightly  regarded  as  prag- 
matical. Neither  did  she  share  Kay's  more  funda- 
mental taste  for  the  Elizabethans,  Carolines  and  Au- 
gustans.  She  and  Kay  met  (as  regards  literature)  only 
on  economics,  politics,  and  modern  verse.  Gerda's 
mind  was  artistic  rather  than  literary,  and  she  felt  no 
wide  or  acute  interest  in  human  beings,  their  actions, 
passions,  foibles,  and  desires. 

So,  surrounded  by  books  from  the  Times  library,  and 
by  nearly  all  the  weekly  and  monthly  reviews  (the 
Bendishes,  like  many  others,  felt,  with  whatever  regret, 
that  they  had  to  see  all  of  these),  Gerda  for  the  most 
part,  when  alone,  lay  and  dreamed  dreams  and  ate 
pears. 


Barry  came  down  for  week-ends.  He  and  Gerda 
had  declared  their  affections  towards  one  another  even 
at  the  Looe  infirmary,  where  Gerda  had  been  conveyed 
from  the  scene  of  accident.  It  had  been  no  moment 
then  for  anything  more  definite  than  statements  of 
reciprocal  emotion,  which  are  always  cheering  in  sick- 
ness. But  when  Gerda  was  better,  well  enough,  in  fact, 
to  lie  in  the  Windover  conservatory,  Barry  came  down 
from  town  and  said,  "When  shall  we  get  married?" 

Then  Gerda,  who  had  had  as  yet  no  time  or  mind- 
energy  to  reflect  on  the  probable,  or  rather  certain. 


PRINCIPLES  171 

width  of  the  gulf  between  the  sociological  theories  of 
herself  and  Barry,  opened  her  blue  eyes  wide  and  said 
''Married?" 

"Well,  isn't  that  the  idea?  You  can't  jilt  me  now, 
you  know;  matters  have  gone  too  far." 

"But,  Barry,  I  thought  you  knew.  I  don't  hold  with 
marriage." 

Barry  threw  back  his  head  and  laughed,  because  she 
looked  so  innocent  and  so  serious  and  young  as  she 
lay  there  among  the  pears  and  bandages. 

"All  right,  darling.  You've  not  needed  to  hold  with 
it  up  till  now.  But  now  you'd  better  catch  on  to  it  as 
quickly  as  you  can,  and  hold  it  tight,  because  it's 
what's  going  to  happen." 

Gerda  moved  her  bandaged  head  in  denial. 

"Oh,  no,  Barry.  T  can't.  ...  I  thought  you  knew. 
Haven't  we  ever  talked  about  marriage  before?" 

"Oh,  probably.  Yes,  I  think  I've  heard  you  and 
Kay  both  on  the  subject.  You  don't  hold  with  legal 
ties  in  what  should  be  purely  a  matter  of  emotional 
impulse,  I  know.  But  crowds  of  people  talk  like  that 
and  then  oret  married.  I've  no  doubt  Kay  will  too, 
when  his  time  comes." 

"Kay  won't.  He  thinks  marriage  quite  wrong.  And 
so  do  I."  '  ' 

Barry,  who  had  stopped  laughing,  settled  himself 
to  talk  it  out. 

"Why  wrong,  Gerda?  Superfluous,  if  you  like;  ir- 
relevant, if  you  like;  but  why  wrong?" 

"Because  it's  a  fetter  on  what  shouldn't  be  fettered. 
Love  might  stopT^TKen  it  would  be  ugly." 

"Oh  very.  One  has  to  take  that  risk,  like  other  risks. 
And  love  is  really  more  likely  to  stop,  as  I  see  it,  if 
there's  no  contract  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  if  the  two 
people  know  each  can  walk  away  from  the  other,  and 


172  DANGEROUS  AGES 

is  expected  to,  directly  they  quarrel  or  feel  a  little 
bored.  The  contract,  the  legalisation — absurd  and 
irrelevant  as  all  legal  things  are  to  anything  that  mat- 
ters— the  contract,  because  we're  such  tradition-bound 
creatures,  does  give  a  sort  of  illusion  of  inevitability 
which  is  settling,  so  that  it  doesn't  occur  to  the  people 
-^^  to  fly  apart  at  the  first  strain.  They  go  through  with 
it  instead,  and  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  come  out  on  the 
other  side.  In  the  tenth  case  they  just  have  either  to 
(  make  the  best  of  it  or  to  make  a  break.  ...  Of  course 
/  people  always  can  throw  up  the  sponge,  even  married 
people,  if  things  are  insupportable.  The  door  isn't 
locked.  But  there's  no  point,  I  think,  in  having  it 
swinging  wide  open." 

"I  think  it  should  be  open,"  Gerda  said.  "I  think 
people  should  be  absolutely  free.  .  .  .  Take  you  and 
me.  Suppose  you  got  tired  of  me,  or  liked  someone  else 
better,  I  think  you  ought  to  be  able  to  leave  me  with- 
out any  fuss." 

That  was  characteristic  of  both  of  them,  that  they 
could  take  their  own  case  theoretically  without  becom- 
ing personal,  without  lovers'  protestations  to  confuse 
the  general  issue. 

"Well,"  Barry  said,  "I  don't  think  I  ought.  I  think 
it  should  be  made  as  difficult  for  me  as  possible^^  Be- 
cause* of  the  children.  There  are  usually  children,  of 
course.  If  I  left  you,  I  should  have  to  leave  them  too. 
Then  they'd  have  no  father.  Or,  if  it  were  you  that 
v/ent,  they'd  have  no  mother.  Either  way  it's  a  pity, 
normally.  Also,  even  if  we  stayed  together  always 
and  weren't  married,  they'd  have  no  legal  name.  Chil- 
dren often  miss  that,  later  on.  Children  of  the  school 
age  are  the  most  conventional,  hidebound  creatures. 
They'd  feel  ashamed  before  their  schoolfellows." 


PRINCIPLES  173 

"I  suppose  they'd  have  my  name  legally,  wouldn't 
they?" 

"I  suppose  so.  But  they  might  prefer  mine.  The 
other  boys  and  girls  would  have  their  fathers',  you 
see." 

"Not  all  of  them.  I  know  several  people  who  don't 
hold  with  marriage  either;  there'd  be  all  their  chil- 
dren. And  anyhow  it's  not  a  question  of  what  the 
children  would  prefer  while  they  were  at  school.  It's 
what's  best  for  them.  And  anything  would  be  better 
than  to  see  their  parents  hating  each  other  and  still 
having  to  live  together." 

''Yes.  Anything  would  be  better  than  that.  Ex- 
cept that  it  would  be  a  useful  and  awful  warning  to 
them.  But  the  point  is,  most  married  people  don't 
hate  each  other.  They  develop  a  kind  of  tolerating, 
compamofiabTe  affection,  after  the  first  excitement 
called  being  in  love  is  past — so  far  as  it  does  pass. 
That's  mostly  good  enough  to  live  on;  that  and  com- 
mon interests  and  so  forth.  It's  the  stuff  of  ordinary 
life;  the  emotional  excitement  is  the  hors  d'oenvre.  It 
would  be  greedy  to  want  to  keep  passing  on  from  one 
hors  d'ocuvre  to  another — leaving  the  meal  directly  the 
joint  comes  in." 

"I  like  dessert  best,"  Gerda  said,  irrelevantly,  biting 
into  an  apple. 

''Well,  you'd  never  get  any  at  that  rate.  Nor  much 
of  the  rest  of  the  meal  either." 

"But  people  do,  Barry.  Free  unions  often  last  for 
years  and  years — sometimes  forever.  Only  you 
wouldn't  feel  tied.  You'd  be  sure  you  were  only  living 
together  because  you  both  liked  to,  not  because  you 
had  to." 

"I  should  feel  I  had  to,  however  free  it  was.     So 


174  DANGEROUS  AGES 

you  wouldn't  have  that  consolation  about  me.    I  might  / 
be  sick  of  you,  and  pining  for  someone  else,  but  still  I S 
should  stay." 
"Why,  Barry?" 

"Because  I  believe  in  permanent  unions,  as  a  gen- 
eral principle.  They're  more  civilised.  It's  unusual^ 
uncivic,  dotting  about  from  one  mate  to  another,  leav- 
ing your  young  and  forgetting  all  about  them  and  hav- 
ing new  ones.  Irresponsible,  I  call  it.  Living  only  for  J. 
a  good  time.  It's  not  the  way  to  be  good  citizens,  as  I 
see  it,  nor  to  bring  up  good  citizens.  .  .  .  Oh,  I  know 
that  the  whole  question  of  sex  relationships  is  horribly 
complicated,  and  can't  be  settled  with  a  phrase  or  a 
dogma.  It's  been  for  centuries  so  wrapped  in  cant  and 
humbug  and  expediencies  and  camouflage;  I  don't  pro- 
fess to  be  able  to  pierce  through  all  that,  or  to  so  much 
as  begin  to  think  it  out  clearly.    The  only  thing  I  can 

f  fall  back  on  as  a  certainty  is  the  children  question.  A 
confused  and  impermanent  family  life  must  be  a  bad 
background  for  the  young.  They  want  all  the}^  can 
get  of  both  their  parents,  in  the  way  of  education  and 
training  and  love." 

\  "Family  life  is  such  a  hopeless  muddle,  anyhow." 
"A  muddle,  yes.  Hopeless,  no.  Look  at  your  own. 
Your  father  and  mother  have  always  been  friends  with 
each  other  and  with  you.  They  brought  you  up  with 
definite  ideas  about  what  they  wanted  you  to  become 
—fairly  well  thought-out  and  consistent  ideas,  I  sup- 
pose. I  don't  say  they  could  do  much — parents  never 
can— but  something  soalis  in." 

"Usually  something  silly  and  bad." 
"Often,  yes.    An3^how  a  queer  kind  of  mixed  brew. 
But  at  least  the  parents  have  their  chance.    It's  what 
they're  there  for ;  they've  got  to  do  all  they  know,  while 


PRINCIPLES  175 

the  children  are  young,  to  influence  them  towards  what 
they  personally  believe,  however  mistakenly,  to  be  the 
finest  points  of  view.  Of  course  lots  of  it  is,  as  you 
say,  silly  and  bad,  because  people  are  largely  silly  and 
bad.  But  no  parent  can  be  absolved  from  doing  his 
or  her  best." 

Jiarry  was  walking  round  the  conservatory,  eager 
and  full  of  faith  and  hope  and  fire,  talking  rapidly,  the 
educational  enthusiast,  the  ardent  citizen,  the  social 
being,  the  institutionalist,  all  over.  He  was  all  these 
things;  he  was  rooted  and  grounded  in  citizenship,  in 
social  ethics.  He  stopped  by  the  couch  and  stood  look- 
ing down  at  Gerda  among  her  fruit,  his  hands  in  his 
pockets,  his  eyes  bright  and  lit. 

"All  the  same,  darling,  I  shall  never  want  to  fetter 
you.  If  you  ever  want  to  leave  me,  I  shan't  come  after 
you.  The  legal  tie  shan't  stand  in  your  way.  And 
to  me  it  would  make  no  difference;  I  shouldn't  leave 
you  in  any  case,  married  or  not.  So  I  don't  see  how 
or  why  you  score  in  doing  without  the  contract." 

"It's  the  idea  of  the  thing,  partly.  I  don't  want  to 
wear  a  wedding  ring  and  be  Mrs.  Briscoe.  I  want  to 
be  Gerda  Bendish,  living  with  Barry  Briscoe  because 
we  like  to.  ...  I  expect,  Barry,  in  my  case  it  would 
be  for  always,  because,  at  present,  I  can't  imagine 
stopping  caring  more  for  you  than  for  anything  else. 
But  that  doesn't  affect  the  principle  of  the  thing.  It 
would  be  wrong  for  me  to  marry  you.  One  oughtn't  to\ 
give  up  one's  principles  just  because  it  seems  all  right  ^ 
in  a  particular  case.  It  would  be  cheap  and  shoddy 
and  cowardly."  / 

"Exactly,"  said  Barry,  "what  I  feel.  I  can't  give  up 
my  principle  either,  you  know.  I've  had  mine  longer 
than  you've  had  yours." 


176  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"I've  had  mine  since  I  was  about  fifteen." 

"Five  years.  Well,  I've  had  mine  for  twenty.  Ever 
since  I  first  began  to  think  anything  out,  that  is." 

"People  of  your  age,"  said  Gerda,  "people  over 
thirty,  I  mean,  often  think  like  that  about  marriage. 
I've  noticed  it.    So  has  Kay." 

"Observant  infants.  Well,  there  we  stand,  then. 
One  of  us  has  got  either  to  change  his  principles — her 
principles,  I  mean — or  to  be  false  to  them.  Or  else, 
apparently,  there  can  be  nothing  doing  between  you 
and  me.     That's  the  position,  isn't  it?" 

Gerda  nodded,  her  mouth  full  of  apple. 

"It's  very  awkward,"  Barry  continued,  "my  having 
fallen  in  love  with  you.  I  had  not  taken  your  probable 
views  on  sociology  into  account.  I  knew  that,  though 
we  differed  in  spelling  and  punctuation,  we  were  agreed 
(approximately)  on  politics,  economics,  and  taste  in 
amusements,  and  I  thought  that  was  enough.  I  forgot 
that  divergent  views  on  matrimony  were  of  practical 
importance.  It  would  have  mattered  less  if  I  had  dis- 
covered that  you  were  a  militarist  and  imperialist  and 
quoted  Marx  at  me." 

"I  did  tell  you,  Barry.  I  really  did.  I  never  hid  it. 
And  I  never  supposed  that  you'd  want  to  marry  me." 

"That  was  rather  stupid  of  you.  I'm  so  obviously  a 
marrying  man.  .  .  .  Now,  darling,  will  you  think  the 
whole  thing  out  from  the  beginning,  after  I've  gone? 
Be  first-hand;  don't  take  over  theories  from  other 
people,  and  don't  be  sentimental  about  it.  Thrash  the 
whole  subject  out  with  yourself  and  with  other  people 
— with  your  own  friends,  and  with  your  family  too. 
They're  a  modern,  broad-minded  set,  your  people,  after 
all;  they  won't  look  at  the  thing  conventionally;  they'll 
talk  sense;  they  won't  fob  you  off  with  stock  phrases. 


PRINCIPLES  177 

or  talk  about  the  sanctity  of  the  home.  They're  not 
institutionalists.  Only  be  fair  about  it;  weigh  all  the 
pros  and  cons,  and  judge  honestly,  and  for  heaven's 
sake  don't  look  at  the  thing  romantically,  or  go  off  on 
theories  because  they  sound  large  and  subversive. 
Think  of  practical  points,  as  well  as  of  ultimate  prin- 
ciples. Both,  to  my  mind,  are  on  the  same  side.  I'm 
not  asking  you  to  sacrifice  right  for  expediency,  or 
expediency  for  right.  I  don't  say  'Be  sensible,'  or  'Be 
idealistic'    We've  got  to  be  both." 

"Barry,  I've  thought  and  talked  about  it  so  often 
and  so  long.  You  don't  know  how  much  we  do  talk 
about  that  sort  of  thing,  at  the  club  and  everywhere 
and  Kay  and  I.    I  could  never  change  my  mind." 

"What  a  hopeless  admission!  We  ought  to  be  ready 
to  change  our  minds  at  any  moment;  they  should  be 
as  changeable  as  pound  notes." 

"What  about  yours,  then,  darling?" 

"I'm  always  ready  to  change  mine.  I  shall  think 
the  subject  out  too,  and  if  I  do  change  I  shall  tell  you 
at  once." 

"Barry."  Gerda's  face  was  grave;  her  forehead  was 
corrugated.  "Suppose  we  neither  of  us  ever  change? 
Suppose  we  both  go  on  thinking  as  we  do  now  for  al- 
ways?   What  then?" 

He  smoothed  the  knitted  forehead  with  his  fingers. 

"Then  one  of  us  will  have  to  be  a  traitor  to  his  or 
her  principles.  A  pity,  but  sometimes  necessary  in 
this  complicated  world.  Or,  if  we  can  neither  of  us 
bring  ourselves  down  to  that,  I  suppose  eventually 
we  shall  each  perpetrate  with  someone  else  the  kind  of 
union  we  personally  prefer." 

They  parted  on  that.  The  thing  had  not  grown  seri- 
ous yet;  they  could  still  joke  about  it. 


1 78  DANGEROUS  AGES 


Though  Gerda  said  "What's  the  use  of  my  talking 
about  it  to  people  when  I've  made  up  my  mind?"  and 
though  she  had  not  the  habit  of  talking  for  conversa- 
tion's sake,  she  did  obediently  open  the  subject  with 
her  parents,  in  order  to  assure  herself  beyond  a  doubt 
what  they  felt  about  it.  But  she  knew  already  that 
their  opinions  were  what  you  might  expect  of  parents, 
even  of  broad-minded,  advanced  parents,  who  rightly 
believed  themselves  not  addicted  to  an  undiscriminating 
acceptance  of  the  standards  and  decisions  of  a  usually 
mistaken  world.  But  Barry  was  wrong  in  saying  they 
weren't  institutionalists;  they  were.     Parents  are. 

Rodney  was  more  opinionated  than  Neville,  on  this 
subject  as  on  most  others.  He  said,  crossly,  "It's  a 
beastly  habit,  unlegitimatised  union.  When  I  say 
beastly,  I  mean  beastly ;  nothing  derogatorj^,  but  merely 
like  the  beasts — the  other  beasts,  that  is." 

Gerda  said  "Well,  that's  not  really  an  argument 
against  it.  In  that  sense  it's  beastly  when  we  sleep 
out  instead  of  in  bed,  or  do  lots  of  other  quite  nice 
things.  The  way  men  and  women  do  things  isn't  neces- 
sarily the  best  way,"  and  there  Rodney  had  to  agree 
with  her.  He  fell  back  on  "It's  unbusinesslike.  Sup- 
pose you  have  children?"  and  Gerda,  who  had  supposed 
all  that  with  Barry,  sighed.  Rodney  said  a  lot  more, 
but  it  made  little  impression  on  her,  beyond  corroborat- 
ing her  views  on  the  matrimonial  theories  of  middle- 
aged  people. 

Neville  made  rather  more.  To  Neville  Gerda  said 
"How  can  I  go  back  on  everything  I've  always  said 
and  thought  about  it,  and  go  and  get  married?  It 
would  be  so  reactionary." 


PRINCIPLES  179 

Neville,  who  had  a  headache  and  was  irritable,  said 
.   "It's  the  other  thing  that's  reactionary.    It  existed  long 
before  the  marriage  tie  did.    That's  what  I  don't  un- 
derstand about  all  you  children  who  pride  yourselves 
on  being  advanced.    If  you  frankly  take  your  stand  on 
going  back  to  nature,  on  being  reactionary — well,  it  is, 
anyhow,  a  point  of  view,  and  has  its  own  merits.    But 
your  minds  seem  to  me  to  be  in  a  hopeless  muddle. 
/  You  think  you're  going  forward  while  you're  really 
\  going  back." 

\      "Marriage,"  said  Gerda,  "is  so  Victorian.    It's  like 
antimacassars." 

"Now,  my  dear,  do  you  mean  anything  by  either  of 
those  statements?  Marriage  wasn't  invented  in  Vic- 
toria's reign.  Nor  did  it  occur  more  frequently  in  that 
reign  than  it  had  before  or  does  now.  Why  Victorian, 
then?  And  why  antimacassars?  Think  it  out.  How 
can  a  legal  contract  be  like  a  doyley  on  the  back  of  a 
chair?  Where  is  the  resemblance?  It  sounds  like  a 
riddle,  only  there's  no  answer.  No,  you  know  you've 
got  no  answer.  That  kind  of  remark  is  sheer  senti- 
mentality and  muddle-headedness.  Why  are  people  in 
their  twenties  so  often  sentimental?  That's  another 
riddle." 

"That's  what  Nan  says.  She  told  me  once  that  she 
used  to  be  sentimental  when  she  was  twenty.  Was 
she?" 

"IMore  than  she  is  now,  anyhow." 

Neville's  voice  was  a  little  curt.  She  was  not  happy 
about  Nan,  who  had  just  gone  to  Rome  for  the  winter. 

"Well,"  Gerda  said,  "anyhov/  I'm  not  sentimental 
about  not  meaning  to  marry.  I've  thought  about  it 
for  years,  and  I  know." 

"Thought  about  it!  IMuch  you  know  about  it." 
Neville,  tired  and  cross  from  over-work,  was,  unlike 


i8o  DANGEROUS  AGES 

herself,  playing  the  traditional  conventional  mother. 
"Have  you  thought  how  it  will  affect  your  children,  for 
instance?" 

Those  perpetual,  tiresome  children.  Gerda  was  sick 
of  them. 

"Oh  yes,  I've  thought  a  lot  about  that.  And  I  can't 
see  it  will  hurt  them.  Barry  and  I  talked  for  ever  so 
long  about  the  children.    So  did  father." 

So  did  Neville. 

"Of  course  I  know,"  she  said,  "that  you  and  Kay 
would  be  only  too  pleased  if  father  and  1  had  never 
been  married,  but  you've  no  right  to  judge  by  yourself 
the  ones  you  and  Barry  may  have.    They  may  not  be ) 
nearly  so  odd.  .  .  .  And  then  there's  your  own  per-L 
sonal  position.    The  world's  full  of  people  who  think/ 
they  can  insult  a  man's  mistress."  1 

"I  don't  meet  people  like  that.  The  people  I  know 
don't  insult  other  people  for  not  being  married.  They 
think  it's  quite  natural,  and  only  the  people's  own  busi- 
ness." 

"You've  moved  in  a  small  and  rarefied  clique  so  far, 
my  dear.  You'll  meet  the  other  kind  of  people  pres- 
ently; one  can't  avoid  them,  the  world's  so  full  of 
them." 

"Do  they  matter?" 

"Of  course  they  matter.    As  mosquitoes  matter,  and  \ 
wasps,  and  cars  that  splash  mud  at  you  in  the  road.  \ 
You'd  be  constantly  annoyed.    Your  own  scullery  maid  | 
would  turn  up  her  nose  at  you.    The  man  that  brought  j 
the  milk  will  sneer." 

"I  don't  think,"  Gerda  said,  after  reflection,  "that 
I'm  very  easily  annoyed.  I  don't  notice  things,  very 
often.  I  think  about  other  things  rather  a  lot,  you 
see.    That's  why  I'm  slow  at  answering." 

"Well,  Barry  would  be  annoyed,  anyhow." 


PRINCIPLES  ,  i8i 

"Barry  does  lots  of  unpopular  things.  He  doesn't 
mind  what  people  say." 

"He'd  mind  for  you.  .  .  .  But  Barry  isn't  going  to 
do  it.  Barry  won't  have  you  on  your  terms.  If  you 
won't  have  him  on  his,  he'll  leave  you  and  go  and  find 
some  nicer  girl." 

"I  can't  help  it,  mother.  I  can't  do  what  I  don't 
approve  of  for  that.    How  could  I?" 

"No,  darling,  of  course  you  couldn't;  I  apologise. 
But  do  try  and  see  if  you  can't  get  to  approve  of  it, 
or  anyhow  to  be  indifferent  about  it.  Such  a  little 
thing!  It  isn't  as  if  Barry  wanted  you  to  become  a 
Mormon  or  something.  .  .  .  And  after  all  you  can't 
accuse  him  of  being  retrograde,  or  Victorian,  if  you 
like  to  use  that  silly  word,  or  lacking  in  ideals  for  social 
progress — can  you?  He  belongs  to  nearly  all  your 
illegal  political  societies,  doesn't  he?  Why,  his  house 
gets  raided  for  leaflets  from  time  to  time.  I  don't  think 
they  ever  find  any,  but  they  look,  and  that's  some- 
thing. You  can't  call  Barry  hide-bound  or  conven- 
tionally orthodox." 

"No.  Oh  no.  Not  that.  Or  I  shouldn't  be  caring 
for  him.  But  he  doesn't  understand  about  this.  And 
you  don't,  mother,  nor  father,  nor  anyone  of  your 
ages.    I  don't  know  how  it  is,  but  it  is  so." 

"You  mi,f;ht  try  3^our  Aunt  Rosalind,"  Neville  sug- 
gested, with  malice. 

Gerda  shuddered.  "Aunt  Rosalind  .  .  .  she 
wouldn't  understand  at  all.  .  .  ." 

But  the  dreadful  thought  was,  as  Neville  had  in- 
tended, implsnted  in  her  that,  of  all  her  elder  relatives, 
it  was  only  Aunt  Rosalind  who,  though  she  mightn't 
understand,  might  nevertheless  agree.  Aunt  Rosalind 
on  free  unions  .  .  .  that  would  be  terrible  to  have  to 
hear.     For  Aunt  Rosalind  would  hold  with  them  not 


1 82  DANGEROUS  AGES 

because  she  thought  them  right  but  because  she  en- 
joyed them — the  worst  of  reasons.  Gerda  somehow 
felt  degraded  by  the  introduction  into  the  discussion 
of  Aunt  Rosahnd,  whom  she  hated,  whom  she  knew, 
without  having  been  told  so,  that  her  mother  and  all 
of  them  hated.    It  dragged  it  down,  made  it  vulgar. 

Gerda  lay  back  in  silence,  the  springs  of  argument 
and  talk  dried  in  her.    She  wanted  Kay. 

It  was  no  use;  they  couldn't  meet.  Neville  could 
not  get  away  from  her  traditions,  nor  Gerda  from 
hers. 

Neville,  to  change  the  subject  (though  scarcely  for 
the  better),  read  her  "The  Autobiography  of  Mrs. 
Asquith"  till  tea-time. 


They  all  talked  about  it  again,  and  said  the  same 
things,  and  different  things,  and  more  things,  and  got 
no  nearer  one  another  with  it  all.  Soon  Barry  and 
Gerda,  each  comprehending  the  full  measure  of  the  seri- 
ous intent  of  the  other,  stood  helpless  before  it,  the  one 
in  half-amused  exasperation,  the  other  in  obstinate 
determination. 

"She  means  business,  then,"  thought  Barry.  "He 
won't  come  round,"  thought  Gerda  and  their  love 
pierced  and  stabbed  them,  making  Barry  hasty  of 
speech  and  Gerda  sullen. 

"The  waste  of  it,"  said  Barry,  on  Sunday  evening, 
"when  I've  only  got  one  day  in  the  week,  to  spend  it 
quarrelling  about  marriage.  I've  hundreds  of  things 
to  talk  about  and  tell  you — interesting  things,  funny 
things^ — but  I  never  get  to  them,  with  all  this  arguing 
we  have  to  have  first." 


PRINCIPLES  183 

"I  don't  want  to  argue,  Barry.  Let's  not.  We've 
said  everything  now,  lots  of  times.  There  can't  be  any 
more.    Tell  me  your  things  instead!" 

He  told  her,  and  they  were  happy  talking,  and  for- 
got how  they  thought  differently  on  marriage.  But 
always  the  difference  lay  there  in  the  background, 
coiled  up  like  a  snake,  ready  to  uncoil  and  seize  them 
and  make  them  quarrel  and  hurt  one  another.  Always 
one  was  expecting  the  other  at  any  moment  to  throw 
up  the  sponge  and  cry  "Oh,  have  it  your  own  way, 
since  you  won't  have  it  mine  and  I  love  you."  But 
neither  did.  Their  wills  stood  as  stiff  as  two  rocks 
over  against  one  another. 

Gerda  grew  thinner  under  the  strain,  and  healed 
more  slowly  than  before.  Her  fragile,  injured  body 
was  a  battle-ground  between  her  will  and  her  love, 
and  suffered  in  the  conflict.  Barry  saw  that  it  could 
not  go  on.  They  would,  he  said,  stop  talking  about  it; 
they  would  put  it  in  the  background  and  go  on  as  if 
it  were  not  there,  until  such  time  as  they  could  agree. 
So  they  became  friends  again,  lovers  who  lived  in  the 
present  and  looked  to  no  future,  and,  since  better  might 
not  be,  that  had  to  do  for  the  time. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THAT  WHICH  REMAINS 


Through  September  Neville  had  nursed  Gerda  by  day 
and  worked  by  night.  The  middle  of  October,  just 
when  they  usually  moved  into  town  for  the  winter,  she 
collapsed,  had  what  the  doctor  called  a  nervous  break- 
down. 

"You've  been  overworking,"  he  told  her.  "You're 
not  strong  enough  in  these  days  to  stand  hard  brain- 
work.    You  must  give  it  up." 

For  a  fortnight  she  lay  tired  and  passive,  surrendered 
and  inert,  caring  for  nothing  but  to  give  up  and  lie 
still  and  drink  hot  milk.  Then  she  struggled  up  and 
mooned  about  the  house  and  garden,  and  cried  weakly 
from  time  to  time,  and  felt  depressed  and  bored,  and 
as  if  life  were  over  and  she  were  at  the  bottom  of  the 
sea. 

"This  must  be  what  mother  feels,"  she  thought. 
"Poor  mother.  .  .  .  I'm  like  her;  I've  had  my  life, 
and  I'm  too  stupid  to  work,  and  I  can  only  cry.  .  .  . 
Men  must  work  and  women  must  weep.  ...  I  never 
knew  before  that  that  was  true.  ...  I  mustn't  see 
mother  just  now,  it  would  be  the  last  straw  .  .  .  like 
the  skeletons  people  used  to  look  at  to  warn  themselves 
what  they  would  come  to.  .  .  .  Poor  mother  .  .  .  and 
poor  me.  .  .  .  But  mother's  getting  better  now  she's 
being  analysed.     That  wouldn't  help  me  at  all.     I 

184 


THAT  WHICH  REMAINS  185 

analyse  myself  too  much  already.  .  .  .  And  I  was  so 
happy  a  few  months  ago.  What  a  dreadful  end  to  a 
good  ambition.  I  shall  never  work  again,  I  suppose,  in 
any  way  that  counts.  So  that's  that.  .  .  .  Why  do  I 
want  to  work  and  to  do  something?  Other  wives  and 
mothers  don't.  ...  Or  do  they,  only  they  don't  know 
it,  because  they  don't  analyse?  I  believe  they  do,  lots 
of  them.  Or  is  it  only  my  horrible  egotism  and  vanity, 
that  can't  take  a  back  seat  quietly?  I  was  always  like 
that,  I  know.  Nan  and  I  and  Gilbert.  Not  Jim  so 
much,  and  not  Pamela  at  all.  But  Rodney's  worse  than 
I  am;  he  wouldn't  want  to  be  counted  out,  put  on  the 
shelf,  in  the  forties;  he'd  be  frightfully  sick  if  he  had 
to  stand  by  and  see  other  people  working  and  getting 
on  and  in  the  thick  of  things  when  he  wasn't.  He 
couldn't  bear  it;  he'd  take  to  drink,  I  think.  ...  I 
hope  Rodney  won't  ever  have  a  nervous  breakdown 
and  feel  like  this,  poor  darling,  he'd  be  dreadfully  tire- 
some. .  .  .  Not  to  work  after  all.  Not  to  be  a  doctor. 
.  .  .  What  then?  Just  go  about  among  people,  grin- 
ning like  a  dog.  Winter  in  town,  talking,  dining,  being 
the  political  wife.  Summer  in  the  country,  walking, 
riding,  reading,  playing  tennis.  Fun,  of  course.  But 
what's  it  all  for?  Wlien  I've  got  Gerda  off  my  hands 
I  shall  have  done  being  a  mother,  in  any  sense  that 
matters.  Is  being  a  wife  enough  to  live  for?  Rodney's 
wife?  Oh,  I  want  to  be  some  use,  want  to  do  things,  / 
to  count.  .  .  .  And  Rodney  will  die  some  time — I  know 
he'll  die  first — and  then  I  shan't  even  be  a  wife.  And 
in  twenty  years  I  shan't  be  able  to  do  things  with  my 
body  much  more,  and  what  then?  What  will  be  left? 
...  I  think  I'm  getting  hysterical,  like  poor  mother. 
.  .  .  How  ugly  I  look,  these  days." 

She   stepped    before    the    looking-glass.     Her    face 
looked  back  at  her,  white  and  thin,  almost  haggard, 


1 86  DANGEROUS  AGES 

traced  in  the  last  few  weeks  for  the  first  time  with 
definite  lines  round  brow  and  mouth.  Her  dark  hair 
was  newly  streaked  with  grey. 

"Middle  age,"  said  Neville,  and  a  cold  hand  was  laid 
round  her  heart.  "It  had  to  come  some  time,  and  this 
illness  has  opened  the  door  to  it.  Or  shall  I  look  young 
again  when  I'm  quite  well?    No,  never  young  again." 

She  shivered. 

"I  look  like  mother  to-day.  ...  I  am  like 
mother.  .  .  ." 

So  youth  and  beauty  were  to  leave  her,  too.  She 
would  recover  from  this  illness  and  this  extinguishing 
of  charm,  but  not  completely,  and  not  for  long.  Middle 
age  had  begun.  She  would  have  off  days  in  future, 
when  she  would  look  old  and  worn  instead  of  always, 
as  hitherto,  looking  charming.  She  wouldn't,  in  future, 
be  sure  of  herself;  people  wouldn't  be  sure  to  think  "A 
lovely  woman,  Mrs.  Rodney  Bendish."  Soon  they 
would  be  saying  "How  old  Mrs.  Bendish  is  getting  to 
look,"  and  then  "She  was  a  pretty  woman  once." 

Well,  looks  didn't  matter  much  really,  after  all.  .  .  . 

"They  do,  they  do,"  cried  Neville  to  the  glass,  pas- 
sionately truthful.  "If  you're  vain  they  do — and  I 
am  vain.  Vain  of  my  mind  and  of  my  body.  .  .  . 
Vanity,  vanity,  all  is  vanity  .  .  .  and  now  the  silver 
cord  is  going  to  be  loosed  and  the  golden  bowl  is  going 
to  be  broken,  and  I  shall  be  hurt." 

Looks  did  matter.  It  was  no  use  canting,  and  mini-  \ 
mising  them.  They  affected  the  thing  that  mattered  / 
most — one's  relations  with  people.  Men,  for  instance,  ] 
cared  more  to  talk  to  a  woman  whose  looks  pleased  ( 
them.  They  liked  pretty  girls,  and  pretty  women.  I 
Interesting  men  cared  to  talk  to  them:  they  told  them  j 
things  they  v/ould  never  tell  a  plain  woman.    Rodney    / 


THAT  WHICH  REMAINS  187 

did.    He  liked  attractive  women.    Sometimes  he  made 
love  to  them,  prettily  and  harmlessly. 

The  thou.^ht  of  Rodney  stabbed  her.  If  Rodney 
were  to  get  to  care  less  ...  to  stop  making  love  to 
her  .  .  .  worse,  to  stop  needing  her.  .  .  .  For  he  did 
need  her;  through  all  their  relationship,  disappointing 
in  some  of  its  aspects,  his  need  had  persisted,  a  simple, 
demanding  thing. 

Humour  suddenly  came  back. 

"This,  I  suppose,  is  what  Gerda  is  anticipating,  and 
why  she  won't  have  Barry  tied  to  her.  If  Rodney 
wasn't  tied  to  me  he  could  flee  from  my  wrinkles.  .  ,  ." 

"Oh,  what  an  absurd  fuss  one  makes.  What  does 
any  of  it  matter?  It's  all  in  the  course  of  nature,  and 
the  sooner  'tis  over  the  sooner  to  sleep.  Middle  age 
will  be  very  nice  and  comfortable  and  entertaining, 
once  one's  fairly  in  it.  ...  I  go  babbling  about  my 
wasted  brain  and  fading  looks  as  if  I'd  been  a  mixture 
of  Sappho  and  Helen  of  Troy.  .  .  .  That's  the  worst  of 
being  a  vain  creature.  .  .  .  What  will  Rosalind  do  when 
her  time  comes?  Oh,  paint,  of  course,  and  dye — more 
thickly  than  she  does  now,  I  mean.  She'll  be  a  ghastly 
sight.  A  raddled  harridan.  At  least  I  shall  always 
look  respectable,  I  hope.  I  shall  go  down  to  Gerda. 
I  want  to  look  at  something  young.  The  young  have  \ 
their  troubles,  poor  darlings,  but  they  don't  know  how  ■' 
lucky  they  are."  ) 


In  November  Neville  and  Gerda,  now  both  convales- 
cent, joined  Rodney  in  their  town  flat.  Rodney 
thought  London  would  buck  Neville  up.  London  does 
buck  you  up,  even  if  it  is  November  and  there  is  no 


1 88  DANGEROUS  AGES 

gulf  stream  and  not  much  coal.  For  there  is  always 
music  and  always  people.  Neville  had  a  critical  appre- 
ciation of  both.  Then,  for  comic  relief,  there  are  poli- 
tics. You  cannot  be  really  bored  with  a  world  which 
contains  the  mother  of  Parliaments,  particularly  if  her 
news  is  communicated  to  you  at  first  hand  by  one  of 
her  members.  Disgusted  you  may  be  and  are,  if  you 
are  a  right-minded  person,  but  at  least  not  bored. 

What  variety,  what  excitement,  what  a  moving  pic- 
ture show,  is  this  tragic  and  comic  planet!  Wliy  want 
to  be  useful,  why  indulge  such  tedious  inanities  as 
ambitions,  why  dream  wistfully  of  doing  one's  bit, 
making  one's  work,  in  a  world  already  as  full  of  bits, 
bright,  coloured,  absurd  bits,,  like  a  kaleidoscope,  as 
full  of  marks  (mostly  black  marks)  as  a  novel  from  a 
free  library?  A  dark  and  bad  and  bitter  world,  of 
course,  full  of  folly,  wickedness  and  misery,  sick  with 
poverty  and  pain,  so  that  at  times  the  only  thing  Neville 
could  bear  to  do  in  it  was  to  sit  on  some  dreadful  com- 
mittee thinking  of  ameliorations  for  the  lot  of  the  very 
poor,  or  to  go  and  visit  Pamela  in  Hoxton  and  help  her 
with  some  job  or  other — that  kind  of  direct,  imme- 
diate, human  thing,  which  was  a  sop  to  uneasiness  and 
pity  such  as  the  political  work  she  dabbled  in,  however 
similar  its  ultimate  aim,  could  never  be. 


To  Pamela  Neville  said,  "Are  you  afraid  of  getting 
old,  Pamela?" 

Pamela  replied,  "Not  a  bit.  Are  you?"  And  she 
confessed  it. 

"Often  it's  like  a  cold  douche  of  water  down  my 
spine,  the  thought  of  it.    I  reason  and  mock  at  myself. 


THAT  WHICH  REMAINS  189 

but  I  don't  like  it.  .  .  .  You're  different;  finer,  more 
real,  more  unselfish.  Besides,  you'll  have  done  some- 
thing worth  doing  when  you  have  to  give  up.    I  shan't." 

Pamela's  brows  went  up. 

"Kay?  Gerda?  The  pretty  dears:  I've  done  noth- 
ing so  nice  as  them.  You've  done  what's  called  a 
woman's  work  in  the  world — isn't  that  the  phrase?" 

"Done  it — just  so,  but  so  long  ago.  What  now?  I 
still  feel  young,  Pamela,  even  now  that  I  know  I'm  not. 
...  Oh  Lord,  it's  a  queer  thing,  being  a  woman.  A 
well-off  woman  of  forty-three  with  everything  made 
comfortable  for  her  and  her  brain  gone  to  pot  and  her 
work  in  the  world  done.  I  want  something  to  bite  my 
teeth  into — some  solid,  permanent  job — and  I  get  noth- 
ing but  sweetmeats,  and  people  point  at  Kay  and  Gerda 
and  say  'That's  your  work,  and  it's  over.  Now  you 
can  rest,  seeing  that  it's  good,  like  God  on  the  seventh 
day.' " 

'7  don't  say  'Now  you  can  rest.  Except  just  now, 
while  you're  run  down.'  " 

"Run  down,  yes;  run  down  like  a  disordered  clock 
because  I  tried  to  tackle  an  honest  job  of  work  again. 
Isn't  it  sickening,  Pamela?    Isn't  it  ludicrous?" 

"Ludicrous — no.  Everyone  comes  up  against  his 
own  limitations.  You've  got  to  work  within  them  that's 
all.  After  all,  there  are  plenty  of  jobs  you  can  do  that 
want  doing — simply  shouting  to  be  done." 

"Pammie  dear,  it's  worse  than  I've  said.  I'm  a  low 
creature.  I  don't  only  want  to  do  jobs  that  want 
doing:  I  w^ant  to  count,  to  make  a  name.  I'm  damnably 
ambitions.  You'll  despise  that,  of  course — and  you're 
quite  right,  it  is  despicable.  But  there  it  is.  Most 
men  and  mnny  women  are  tormented  by  it — they  itch 
for  recognition." 

"Of  course.    One  is." 


^ 


I90  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"You  too,  Pammie?" 

"I  have  been.  Less  now.  Life  gets  to  look  short, 
when  you're  thirty-nine." 

"Ah,  but  you  have  it — recognition,  even  fame,  in  the 
world  you  work  in.  You  count  for  something.  If  you 
value  it,  there  it  is.  I  wouldn't  grumble  if  I'd  played 
your  part  in  the  piece.  It's  a  good  part — a  useful  part 
and  a  speaking  part." 

"I  suppose  we  all  feel  we  should  rather  like  to  play 
someone  else's  part  for  a  change.  There's  nothing  ex- 
citing about  mine.  Most  people  would  far  prefer 
yours." 

They  would,  of  course;  Neville  knew  it.  The  happy  v 
political  wife  rather  than  the  unmarried  woman  ] 
worker;  Rodney,  Gerda  and  Kay  for  company  rather  ( 
than  Frances  Carr.  There  was  no  question  which  was  j 
the  happier  lot,  the  fuller,  the  richer,  the  easier,  the  / 
more  entertaining, 

"Ah  V7ell.  .  .  .  You  see,  Rosalind  spent  the  after- 
noon with  me  yesterday,  and  I  felt  suddenly  that  it 
wasn't  for  me  to  be  stuck  up  about  her — what  am  I  too 
but  the  pampered  female  idler,  taking  good  things  with- 
out earning  them?  It  made  me  shudder.  Hence  this 
fit  of  blues.  The  pampered,  lazy,  brainless  animal — 
it  is  such  a  terrific  sight  when  in  human  form.  Rosa- 
lind talked  about  Nan,  Pamela.  In  her  horrible  way — 
you  know.  Hinting  that  she  isn't  alone  in  Rome,  but 
with  Stephen  Lumley." 

Pam.ela  took  off  her  glasses  and  polished  them. 

"Rosalind  would,  of  course.    WTiat  did  you  say?" 

"I  lost  my  tem^per.  I  let  out  at  her.  It's  not  a  thing 
I  often  do  with  Rosalind — it  doesn't  seem  worth  while. 
But  this  time  I  saw  red.  I  told  her  what  I  thought  of 
her  eternal  gossip  and  scandal.  I  said,  what  if  Nan 
and  Stephen  Lumley,  or  Nan  and  anyone  else,  did 


THAT  WHICH  REMAINS  191 

arrange  to  be  in  Rome  at  the  same  time  and  to  see  a  lot 
of  each  other;  where  was  the  harm?     No  use.    You 
can't  pin  Rosalind  down.    She  just  shrugged  her  shoul- 
ders and  smiled,  and  said  'My  dear,  we  all  know  our 
Nan.    We  all  know  too  that  Stephen  Lumley  has  been 
in  love  with  her  for  a  year,  and  doesn't  live  with  his 
wife.    Then  they  go  off  to  Rome  at  the  same  moment, 
and  one  hears  that  they  are  seen  everywhere  together. 
Why  shut  one's  eyes  to  obvious  deductions?    You're  so 
like  an  ostrich,  Neville.'    I  said  I'd  rather  be  an  ostrich'\ 
[than  a  ferret,  eternally  digging  into  other  people's  con-,\ 
Icerns, — and  by  the  time  we  had  got  to  that  I  thought*^ 
it  was  far  enough,  so  I  had  an  engagement  with  my 
dressmaker." 

"It's  no  use  tackling  Rosalind,"  Pamela  agreed. 
"She'll  never  change  her  spots.  .  .  .  Do  you  suppose 
it's  true  about  Nan?" 

"I  daresay  it  is.  Yes,  I'm  afraid  I  do  think  it's  quite 
likely  true.  .  .  .  Nan  was  so  queer  the  few  times  I  saw 
her  after  Gerda's  accident.  I  was  unhappy  about  her. 
She  was  so  hard,  and  so  more  than  usually  cynical  and 
unget-at-able.  She  told  me  it  had  been  all  her  fault, 
leading  Gerda  into  mischief,  doing  circus  tricks  that 
the  child  tried  to  emulate  and  couldn't,  I  couldn't  read 
her,  quite.  Her  tone  about  Gerda  had  a  queer  edge 
to  it.  And  she  rather  elaborately  arranged,  I  thought, 
so  that  she  shouldn't  meet  Barry.  Pamela,  do  you 
think  she  had  finally  and  absolutely  turned  Barry  down 
before  he  took  up  so  suddenly  with  Gerda,  or  .  .  ." 

Pamela  said,  "I  know  nothing.  She  told  me  nothing. 
But  I  rather  thought,  when  she  came  to  see  me  just 
before  she  went  down  to  Cornwall,  that  she  had  made 
up  her  mind  to  have  him,    I  may  have  been  wrono;." 

Neville  leant  her  forehead  on  her  hands  and  sighed. 

"Or  you  may  have  been  right.     And  if  you  were 


192  DANGEROUS  AGES 

right,  it's  the  ghastliest  tragedy — for  her.  .  .  .  Oh,  I 
shouldn't  have  let  Gerda  go  and  work  with  him;  I 
should  have  known  better.  .  .  .  Nan  had  rebuffed  him, 
and  he  flew  off  at  a  tangent,  and  there  was  Gerda  sitting 
in  his  office,  as  pretty  as  flowers  and  with  her  funny 
little  silent  charm.  .  .  .  And  if  Nan  was  all  the  time 
waiting  for  him,  meaning  to  say  yes  when  he  asked  her. 
.  .  .  Poor  darling  Nan,  robbed  by  my  horrid  little  girl, 
who  doesn't  even  want  to  marry.  ...  If  that's  the 
truth,  it  would  account  for  the  Stephen  Lumley  busi- 
ness. Nan  wouldn't  stay  on  in  London,  to  see  them 
together.  If  Lumley  caught  her  at  that  psychological 
moment,  she'd  very  likely  go  off  with  him,  out  of  mere 
desperation  and  bravado.  That  would  be  so  terribly 
like  Nan.  ,  .  .  What  a  desperate,  wry,  cursed  business 
life  is.  .  .  .  On  the  other  hand,  she  ma}^  just  be  going 
about  with  Lumley  on  her  own  terms  not  his.  It's  her 
own  affair  whichever  way  it  is;  what  we've  got  to  do 
is  to  contradict  the  stories  Rosalind  is  spreading  when- 
ever we  get  the  chance.  Not  that  one  can  scotch  scan- 
dal once  it  starts — particularly  Rosalind's  scandal." 

"Ignore  it.  Nan  can  ignore  it  when  she  comes  back. 
It  won't  hurt  her.  Nan's  had  plenty  of  things  said 
about  her  before,  true  and  untrue,  and  never  cared." 

"You're  splendid  at  the  ignoring  touch,  Pam.  I  be- 
lieve there's  nothing  you  can't  and  don't  ignore." 

"Well,  why  not?    Ignoring's  easy." 

"Not  for  most  of  us.  I  believe  it  is,  for  you.  In  a 
sense  j'OU  ignore  life  itself;  anyhow  you  don't  let  it 
hold  and  bully  you.  When  your  time  comes  you'll 
ignore  age,  and  later  death." 

"They  don't  matter  much,  do  they?  Does  anything? 
I  suppose  it's  my  stolid  temperament,  but  I  can't  feel 
that  it  does." 

Neville  thought,  as  she  had  often  thought  before, 


THAT  WHICH  REMAINS  193 

that  Pamela,  like  Nan,  only  more  calmly,  less  reck- 
lessly and  disdainfully,  had  the  aristocratic  touch. 
Pamela,  with  her  delicate  detachments  and  her  light, 
even  touch  on  things  great  and  small,  made  her  feel 
fussy  and  petty  and  excitable. 

"I  suppose  you're  right,  my  dear.  .  .  .  'All  is  laugh-' 
ter,  all  is  dust,  all  is  nothingness,  for  the  things  that 
are  arise  out  of  the  unreasonable.  .  .  .'  I  must  get 
back.  Give  my  love  to  Frances  .  .  .  and  when  next 
you  see  Gerda  do  try  to  persuade  her  that  marriage  is 
one  of  the  things  that  don't  matter  and  that  she  might 
just  as  well  put  up  with  to  please  us  all.  The  child  is  a 
little  nuisance — as  obstinate  as  a  mule." 


Neville,  walking  away  from  Pamela's  grimy  street  in 
the  November  fog,  felt  that  London  was  terrible.  An 
ugly  clamour  of  strident  noises  and  hard,  shrill  voices, 
jabbering  of  vulgar,  trivial  things.  A  wry,  desperate, 
cursed  world,  as  she  had  called  it,  a  pot  seething  with 
bitterness  and  all  dreadfulness,  with  its  Rosalinds  float- 
ing on  the  top  like  scum. 

And  Nan,  her  Nan,  her  little  vehement  sister,  whom 
she  had  mothered  of  old,  had  pulled  out  of  countless 
scrapes — Nan  had  now  taken  her  life  into  her  reckless 
hands  and  done  what  with  it?  Given  it,  perhaps,  to  a 
man  she  didn't  love,  throwing  cynical  defiance  thereby 
at  love,  which  had  hurt  her;  escaping  from  the  intoler- 
able to  the  shoddy.  Even  if  not,  even  supposing  the 
best.  Nan  was  hurt  and  in  trouble;  Neville  was  some- 
how sure  of  that.  Men  were  blind  fools;  men  were 
fickle  children.  Neville  almost  wished  now  that  Barry 
would  give  up  Gerda  and  go  out  to  Rome  and  fetch 


194  DANGEROUS  AGES 

Nan  back.  But,  to  do  that,  Barry  would  have  to  fall 
out  of  love  with  Gerda  and  into  love  again  with  Nan; 
and  even  Barry,  Neville  imagined,  was  not  such  a 
weathercock  as  that.  And  Barry  would  really  be  hap- 
pier with  Gerda.  With  all  their  differences,  they  were 
both  earnest  citizens,  both  keen  on  social  progress. 
Nan  was  a  cynical  flibberty-gibbet;  it  might  not  have 
been  a  happy  union.  Perhaps  happy  unions  were  not 
for  such  as  Nan.  But  at  the  thought  of  Nan  playing 
that  desperate  game  with  Stephen  Lumley  in  Rome, 
Neville's  face  twitched.  .  .  . 

She  would  go  to  Rome.  She  would  see  Nan;  find  out 
how  things  were.  Nan  always  liked  to  see  her,  would 
put  up  with  her  even  when  she  wanted  no  one  else. 

That  was,  at  least,  a  job  one  could  do.    These  family 
jobs — they  still  go  on,  they  never  cease,  even  when  one 
is  getting  middle-aged  and  one's  brain  has  gone  to  pot. 
They  remain,  always,  the  jobs  of  the  affections. 

She  would  write  to  Nan  to-night,  and  tell  her  shr^as 
starting  for  Rome  in  a  few  days,  to  have  a  respite  from 
the  London  fogs. 


But  she  did  not  start  for  Rome,  or  even  write  to  Nan, 
for  when  she  got  home  she  went  to  bed  with  influenza. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   MOTHER 


The  happiness  Mrs.  Hilary  now  enjoyed  was  of  the 
religious  type — a  deep,  warm  glow,  which  did  not  lack 
excitement.  She  felt  as  those  may  be  presumed  to 
feel  who  have  just  been  converted  to  some  church — 
newly  alive,  and  sunk  in  spiritual  peace,  and  in  pro- 
found harmony  with  life.  WTiere  were  the  old  rubs, 
frets,  jars  and  ennuis?  Vanished,  melted  like  yester- 
day's snows  in  the  sun  of  this  new  peace.  It  was  as  if 
she  had  cast  her  burden  upon  the  Lord.  That,  said 
her  psycho-analyst  doctor,  was  quite  in  order;  that 
was  what  it  ought  to  be  like.  That  was,  in  effect,  what 
she  had  in  point  of  fact  done;  only  the  place  of  the 
Lord  was  filled  by  himself.  To  put  the  matter  briefly, 
transference  of  burden  had  been  effected;  Mrs.  Hilary 
had  laid  all  her  cares,  all  her  perplexities,  all  her  grief, 
upon  this  quiet,  acute-looking  man,  who  sat  with  her 
twice  a  week  for  an  hour,  drawing  her  out,  arranging 
her  s3'mptoms  for  her,  penetrating  the  hidden  places  of 
her  soul,  looking  like  a  cross  between  Sherlock  Holmes 
and  INIr.  Henry  Ainley.  Her  confidence  in  him  was,  he 
told  her,  the  expression  of  the  father-im^ge,  which  sur- 
prised Mrs.  Hilary  a  little,  because  he  was  twenty 
years  her  junior. 

i\Irs.  Hilary  felt  that  she  was  getting  to  know  herself 

195 


196  DANGEROUS  AGES 

very  well  indeed.  Seeing  herself  through  Mr.  Cradock's 
mind,  she  felt  that  she  was  indeed  a  curious  jumble  of 
complexes,  of  strange,  mysterious  impulses,  desires  and 
fears.  Alarming,  even  horrible  in  some  ways;  so  that 
often  she  thought  "Can  he  be  right  about  me?  Am  I 
really  like  that?  Do  I  really  hope  that  Marjorie  (Jim's 
wife)  will  die,  so  that  Jim  and  I  may  be  all  in  all  to 
each  other  again?  Am  I  really  so  wicked?"  But  Mr. 
Cradock  said  that  it  was  not  at  all  wicked,  perfectly 
natural  and  normal — the  Unconscious  was  like  that. 
And  worse  than  that;  how  much  worse  he  had  to  break 
to  Mrs.  Hilary,  who  was  refined  and  easily  shocked,  by 
gentle  hints  and  slow  degrees,  lest  she  should  be 
shocked  to  death.  Her  dreams,  which  she  had  to  re- 
count to  him  at  every  sitting,  bore  such  terrible  signifi- 
cance— they  grew  worse  and  worse  in  proportion,  as 
Mrs.  Hilary  could  stand  more. 

"Ah  well,"  Mrs.  Hilary  sighed  uneasily,  after  an  in- 
terpretation into  strange  terms  of  a  dream  she  had 
about  bathing,  "it's  very  odd,  when  I've  never  even 
thought  about  things  like  that." 

"Your  Unconscious,"  said  Mr.  Cradock,  firmly, 
"has  thought  the  more.  The  more  your  Unconscious  is 
obsessed  by  a  thing,  the  less  your  conscious  self  thinks 
of  it.     It  is  shy  of  the  subject,  for  that  very  reason." 

Mrs.  Hilary  was  certainly  shy  of  the  subject,  for  that 
reason  or  others.  When  she  felt  too  shy  of  it,  Mr. 
Cradock  let  her  change  it.  "It  may  be  true,"  she 
would  say,  "but  it's  very  terrible,  and  I  would  rather 
not  dwell  on  it." 

So  he  would  let  her  dwell  instead  on  the  early  days 
of  her  married  life,  or  on  the  children's  childhood,  or 
on  her  love  for  Neville  and  Jim,  or  on  her  impatience 
with  her  mother. 


THE  MOTHER  197 


They  were  happy  little  times,  stimulating,  cosy  lit- 
tle times.  They  spoke  straight  to  the  heart,  easing  it 
of  its  weight  of  tragedy.  A  splendid  man,  Mr.  Cradock, 
with  his  shrewd,  penetrating  sympathy,  his  kind  firm- 
ness. He  would  listen  with  interest  to  everything;  the 
sharp  words  she  had  had  with  Grandmama,  troubles 
with  the  maids,  the  little  rubs  of  daily  life  (and  what  a 
rubbing  business  life  is,  to  be  sure! )  as  well  as  to  pro- 
founder,  more  tragic  accounts  of  desolation,  jealousy, 
weariness  and  despair.  He  would  say  "Your  case  is  a 
very  usual  one,"  so  that  she  did  not  feel  ashamed  of 
being  like  that.  He  reduced  it  all,  dispassionately  and 
yet  not  unsj/mpathetically,  and  with  clear  scientific  pre- 
cision, to  terms  of  psychical  and  physical  laws.  He 
trained  his  patient  to  use  her  mind  and  her  will,  as  well 
as  to  remember  her  dreams  and  to  be  shocked  at  noth- 
ing that  they  signified. 

Mrs.  Hilary  would  wake  each  morning,  or  during  the 
night,  and  clutch  at  the  dream  which  was  flying  from 
her,  clutch  and  secure  it,  and  make  it  stand  and  deliver 
its  outlines  to  her.  She  was  content  with  outlines;  it 
was  for  Mr.  Cradock  to  supply  the  interpretation. 
Sometimes,  if  !Mrs.  Hilary  couldn't  remember  any 
dr-^ams,  he  would  supply,  according  to  a  classic  prece- 
dent, the  dream  as  well  as  the  interpretation.  But  on 
the  whole,  deeply  as  she  revered  and  admired  him,  Mrs. 
Hilary  preferred  to  remember  her  own  dreams;  what 
they  meant  was  bad  enough,  but  the  meaning  of  the 
dreams  that  INIr.  Cradock  told  her  she  had  dreamt  was 
beyond  all  words.  .  .  .  That  terrible  Unconscious! 
]\Irs.  Hilary  disliked  it  excessive!}^;  she  felt  rather  as  if 
it  were  a  sewer,  sunk  beneath  an  inadequate  grating. 


198  DANGEROUS  AGES 

But  from  Mr.  Cradock  she  put  up  with  hearing  about 
it.  She  would  have  put  up  with  anything.  He  was  so 
steadying  and  so  wonderful.  He  enabled  her  to  face 
life  with  a  new  poise,  a  fresh  lease  of  strength  and 
vitality.  She  told  Grandmama  so.  Grandmama  said 
"Yes,  my  dear,  IVe  observed  it  in  you.  It  sounds  to 
me  an  unpleasing  business,  but  it  is  obviously  doing 
you  good,  so  far.  I  only  wish  it  may  last.  The  danger 
may  be  reaction,  after  you  have  finished  the  course 
and  lost  touch  with  this  young  man."  (Mr.  Cradock 
was  forty-five,  but  Grandmama,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, was  eighty- four.)  "You  will  have  to  guard 
against  that.  In  a  way  it  was  a  pity  you  didn't  take 
up  church-going  instead;  religion  lasts." 

"And  these  quackeries  do  not,"  Grandmama  finished 
her  sentence  to  herself,  not  wishing  to  be  discouraging. 

"Not  always,"  Mrs.  Hilary  truly  replied,  meaning 
that  religion  did  not  always  last. 

"No,"  Grandmama  agreed.  "Unfortunately  not  al- 
ways. Particularly  when  it  is  High  Church.  There 
was  your  uncle  Bruce,  of  course.  .  .  ." 

IMrs.  Hilary's  uncle  Bruce,  who  had  been  High 
Church  for  a  season,  and  had  even  taken  Orders  in 
the  year  i860,  but  whose  faith  had  wilted  in  the  heat 
and  toil  of  the  day,  so  that  by  1870  he  was  an  agnostic 
barrister,  took  Grandmama  back  through  the  last  cen- 
tury, and  she  became  reminiscent  over  the  Tractarian 
movement,  and,  later,  the  Ritualists. 

"The  Queen  never  could  abide  them,"  said  Grand- 
mama. "Nor  could  Lord  Beaconsfield,  nor  your  father, 
though  he  was  always  kind  and  tolerant.  I  remember 
when  Dr.  Jowett  came  to  stay  with  us,  how  they  talked 
about  it.  .  .  .  Ah  well,  they've  become  verv  prominent 
since  then,  and  done  a  great  deal  of  good  work,  and 
there  are  many  very  able,  excellent  m.en  and  v/omen 


THE  MOTHER  199 

among  them.  .  .  .  But  they're  not  High  Church  any 
longer,  they  tell  me.  They're  Catholics  in  these  days. 
I  don't  know  enough  of  them  to  judge  them,  but  I  don't 
think  they  can  have  the  dignity  of  the  old  High  Church 
party,  for  if  they  had  I  can't  imagine  that  Gilbert's 
wife,  for  instance,  would  have  joined  them,  even  for 
so  short  a  time  as  she  did.  .  .  .  Well,  it  suits  some 
people,  and  psycho-analysis  obviously  suits  others. 
Only  I  do  hope  you  will  try  to  keep  moderate  and  bal- 
anced, my  child,  and  not  believe  all  this  young  man 
tells  you.    Parts  of  it  do  sound  so  very  strange." 

(But  Mrs.  Hilary  would  not  have  dreamt  of  repeat- 
ing to  Grandmama  the  strangest  parts  of  all.) 

"I  feel  a  new  woman,"  •  she  said,  fervently,  and 
Grandmama  smiled,  well  pleased,  thinking  that  it  cer- 
tainly did  seem  rather  like  the  old  evangelical  conver- 
sions of  her  youth.  (Which,  of  course,  did  not  always 
last,  any  more  than  the  High  Church  equivalents  did.) 

All  Grandmama  committed  herself  to,  in  her  elderly 
caution,  which  came  however  less  from  age  than  from 
having  known  Mrs,  Hilary  for  sixty-three  years,  was 
"Well,  well,  we  must  see." 


And  then  Rosalind's  letter  came.  It  came  by  the 
afternoon  post — the  big,  mauve,  scented,  sprawled 
sheets,  dashingly  monographed  across  one  corner. 

"Gilbert's  wife,"  pronounced  Grandmama,  non-com- 
mittally  from  her  easy  chair,  and,  said  in  that  tone,  it 
was  quite  sufficient  comment.  "Another  cup  of  tea, 
please,  Emily." 

IMrs.  Hilar}'-  gave  it  to  her,  then  began  to  read  aloud 
the  letter  from  Gilbert's  wife.    Gilbert's  wife  was  one 


200  DANGEROUS  AGES 

of  the  topics  upon  which  she  and  Grandmama  were  m 
perfect  accord,  only  that  Mrs.  Hilary  was  irritated 
when  Grandmama  pushed  the  responsibility  for  the 
relationship  onto  her  by  calling  Rosalind  "your  daugh- 
ter-in-law." 

Mrs.  Hilary  began  to  read  the  letter  in  the  tone  used 
by  well-bred  women  when  they  would,  if  in  a  slightly 
lower  social  stratum,  say  "Fancy  that  now!  Did  you 
ever,  the  brazen  hussy!"  Grandmama  listened, 
cynically  disapproving,  prepared  to  be  disgusted  yet 
entertained.  On  the  whole  she  thoroughly  enjoyed  let- 
ters from  Gilbert's  wife.  She  settled  down  comfort- 
ably in  her  chair  with  her  second  cup  of  tea,  while  Mrs. 
Hilary  read  two  pages  of  what  Grandmama  called 
"foolish  chit-chat."  Rosalind's  letters  were  really  like 
the  gossipping  imbecilities  written  by  Eve  of  the  Tatler, 
or  the  otlier  ladies  who  enliven  our  shinier-paper 
weeklies  with  their  bright  personal  babble.  She  did 
not  often  waste  one  of  them  on  her  mother-in-law^;  only 
when  she  had  something  to  say  which  might  annoy  her. 

"Do  you  hear  from  Nan?"  the  third  page  of  the  let- 
ter began.  "I  hear  from  the  Bramertons,  who  are  win- 
tering in  Rome — the  Charlie  Bramertons,  you  know, 
great  friends  of  mine  and  Gilbert's  (he  won  a  pot  of 
money  on  the  Derby  this  year  and  they've  a  dinky  flat 
in  some  palace  out  there — ),  and  they  meet  Nan  about, 
and  she's  always  with  Stephen  Lumley,  the  painter 
(rotten  painter,  if  you  ask  me,  but  he's  somehow 
diddled  London  into  admiring  him,  don't  expect  you've 
heard  of  him  down  at  the  seaside).  Well,  they're  quite 
simply  always  together,  and  the  Brams  say  that  every- 
one out  there  says  it  isn't  in  the  least  an  am.biguous  case 
— no  two  ways  about  it.  He  doesn't  live  with  his  wife, 
you  know.  You'll  excuse  me  passing  this  on  to  you, 
but  it  does  seem  you  ought  to  know.     I  mentioned  it 


THE  MOTHER  201 

to  Neville  the  other  day,  just  before  the  poor  old  dear 
went  down  with  the  plague,  but  you  know  what  Neville 
is,  she  always  sticks  up  for  Nan  and  doesn't  care  what 
she  does,  or  what  people  say.  People  are  talking; 
beasts,  aren't  they!  But  that's  the  way  of  this  wicked 
old  world,  we  all  do  it.  Gilbert's  quite  upset  about  it, 
says  Nan  ought  to  manage  her  affairs  more  quietly. 
But  after  all  and  between  you  and  me  it's  not  the  first 
time  Nan's  been  a  Town  Topic,  is  it. 

"How's  the  psycho  going?  Isn't  Cradock  rather  a 
priceless  pearl?  You're  over  head  and  ears  with  him 
by  now,  of  course,  we  all  are.  Psycho  wouldn't  do  you 
any  good  if  you  weren't,  that's  the  truth.  Cradock  told 
me  himself  once  that  transference  can't  be  effected 
without  the  patient  being  a  little  bit  smitten.  Per- 
sonally I  should  give  up  a  man  patient  at  once  if  he 
didn't  rather  like  me.  But  isn't  it  soothing  and  com- 
forting, and  doesn't  it  make  you  feel  good  all  over,  like 
a  hot  bath  when  you're  fagged  out.  .  .  ." 

But  Mrs.  Hilary  didn't  get  as  far  as  this.  She 
stopped  at  "not  the  first  time  Nan's  been  a  Town  Topic. 
.  .  ."  and  dropped  the  thin  mauve  sheets  onto  her  lap, 
and  looked  at  Grandmama,  her  face  queerly  tight  and 
flushed,  as  if  she  were  about  to  cry. 

Grandmama  had  finished  her  tea,  and  had  been 
listening  quietly. 

Mrs.  Hilary  said  "Oh,  my  God,"  and  jerked  her  head 
back,  quivering  like  a  nervous  horse  who  has  had  a 
shock  and  does  not  care  to  conceal  it. 

"Your  daughter-in-law,"  said  Grandmama,  without 
excitement,  "is  an  exceedingly  vulgar  young  woman." 

"Vulgar?  Rosalind?  But  of  course.  ,  .  .  Only 
that  doesn't  affect  Nan.  ..." 

"Your  daughter-in-law,"  Grandmama  added,  "is 
also  a  very  notorious  liar." 


202  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"A  liar  ...  oh  yes,  yes,  yes.  .  .  .  But  this  time  it's 
true.  Oh  I  feel,  I  know,  it's  true.  Nan  would.  That 
Stephen  Lumley — he's  been  hanging  about  her  for  ages. 
...  Oh  yes,  it's  true  what  they  say.  The  very 
worst.  .  .  ." 

Grandmama  glanced  at  her  curiously.  The  very 
worst  in  that  direction  had  become  strangely  easier  of 
credence  by  Mrs.  Hilary  lately.  Grandmama  had  ob- 
served that.  Mr.  Cradock's  teaching  had  not  been 
-  without  its  effect.  According  to  Mr.  Cradock,  people 
i  were  usually  engaged  either  in  practising  the  very 
\  worst,  or  in  desiring  to  practise  it,  or  in  wishing  and 
\\  dreaming  that  they  had  practised  it.  It  was  the  nature 
/  of  mankind,  and  not  in  the  least  reprehensible,  though 
curable.  Thus  Mr.  Cradock.  Mrs.  Hilary  had,  against 
her  own  taste,  absorbed  part  of  his  teaching,  but  noth- 
ing could  ever  persuade  her  that  it  was  not  reprehensi- 
ble: it  quite  obviously  -was.  Also  disgusting.  Mr. 
Cradock  might  say  what  he  liked.  It  was  disgusting. 
And  when  the  man  had  a  wife.  .  .  . 

"It  is  awful,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary.  "Awful.  ...  It 
must  be  stopped.    I  shall  go  to  Rome.    At  once." 

"That  won't  stop  it,  dear,  if  it  is  going  on.  It  will 
only  irritate  the  young  people." 

"Irritate!  You  can  use  a  word  like  that!  Mother, 
you  don't  realise  this  ghastly  thing." 

"I  quite  see,  my  dear,  that  Nan  may  be  carrying  on 
with  this  artist.  And  very  wrong  it  is,  if  so.  All  I 
say  is  that  j^our  going  to  Rome  won't  stop  it.  You 
know  that  you  and  Nan  don't  always  get  on  very 
smoothly.  You  rub  each  other  up.  .  .  .  It  would  be 
far  better  if  someone  else  went.    Neville,  say." 

"Neville  is  ill."  Mrs.  Hilary  shut  her  lips  tightly  on 
that.  She  was  glad  Neville  v/as  ill;  she  had  always 
hated  (she  could  not  help  it)   the  devotion  between 


THE  MOTHER  203 

Neville  and  Nan.  Nan,  in  her  tempestuous  childhood, 
flaring  with  rage  against  her  mother,  or  sullen,  spiteful 
and  perverse,  long  before  she  could  have  put  into  words 
the  qualities  in  Mrs.  Hilary  which  made  her  like  that, 
had  always  gone  to  Neville,  nine  years  older,  to  be 
soothed  and  restored  to  good  temper.  Neville  had 
reprimanded  the  little  naughty  sister,  had  told  her  she 
must  be  "decent  to  mother" — feel  decent  if  you  can, 
behave  decent  in  any  case,"  was  the  way  she  had  put 
it.  It  was  Neville  who  had  heard  Nan's  confidences 
and  helped  her  out  of  scrapes  in  childhood,  schoolgirl- 
hood  and  ever  since.  This  was  very  bitter  to  Mrs. 
Hilary.  She  was  jealous  of  both  of  them;  jealous  that 
so  much  of  Neville's  love  should  go  elsewhere  than  to 
her,  jealous  that  Nan,  who  gave  her  nothing  except 
generous  and  extravagant  gifts  and  occasional,  spas- 
modic, remorseful  efforts  at  affection  and  gentleness, 
should  to  Neville  give  all. 

"Neville  is  ill,"  she  said.  "She  certainly  won't  be 
fit  to  travel  out  of  England  this  winter.  Influenza 
coming  on  the  top  of  that  miserable  breakdown  is  a 
thing  to  be  treated  with  the  greatest  care.  Even  when 
she  is  recovered,  post-influenza  will  keep  her  weak  till 
the  summer.  I  am  really  anxious  about  her.  No; 
Neville  is  quite  out  of  the  question." 

"Well,  what  about  Pamela?" 

"Pamela  is  up  to  her  eyes  in  her  work.  .  .  .  Besides, 
why  should  Pamela  go,  or  Neville,  rather  than  I?  A 
girl's  mother  is  obviously  the  right  person.  I  may  not 
be  of  much  use  to  my  children  in  these  da^'s,  but  at  least 
I  hope  I  can  save  them  from  themselves." 

"It  takes  a  clever  parent  to  do  that,  Emily,"  said 
Grandmama,  v.ho  doubtless  knew. 

"But,  mother,  what  would  you  have  me  do?   Sit  with 


204  DANGEROUS  AGES 

my  hands  before  me  while  my  daughter  lives  in  sin? 
What's  your  plan?" 

"I'm  too  old  to  make  plans,  dear.    I  can  only  look 
on  at  the  world.     I've  looked  at  the  world  now  for 
many,  many  years,  and  I've  learnt  that  only  great  wis- 
dom and  great  love  can  change  people's  decisions  as  to 
tieir  way  of  life,  or.  turn  them  from  evil  courses.^ 
Frankly,  my  child,  I  doubt  if  you  have,  where  Nan 
is  concerned,  enough  wisdom  or  enough  love.    Enough  \ 
sympathy,  I  should  rather  say,  for  you  have  love.    But ) 
do  you  feel  you  understand  the  child  enough  to  inter-  1 
fere  wisely  and  successfully?" 

"Oh,  you  think  I'm  a  fool,  mother;  of  course  I  know 
you've  always  thought  me  a  fool.  Good  God,  if  a 
mother  can't  interfere  with  her  own  daughter  to  save 
her  from  wickedness  and  disaster,  who  can,  I  should 
like  to  know?" 

"One  would  indeed  like  to  know  that,"  Grandmama 
said,  sadly. 

"Perhaps  you'd  like  to  go  yourself,"  Mrs.  Hilary 
shot  at  her,  quivering  now  with  anger  and  feeling. 

"No,  my  dear.  Even  if  I  were  able  to  get  to  Rome 
I  should  know  that  I  was  too  old  to  interfere  with 
the  lives  of  the  young.  I  don't  understand  them 
enough.  You  believe  that  you  do.  Well,  I  suppose 
you  must  go  and  try.    I  can't  stop  you." 

"You  certainly  can't.  Nothing  can  stop  me.  .  .  . 
Vou're  singularly  unsympathetic,  mother,  about  this 
awful  business." 

"I  don't  feel  so,  dear.  I  am  very,  very  sorry  for  you, 
and  very,  very  sorry  for  Nan  (whom,  you  must  re- 
member, we  may  be  slandering).  I  have  always  looked 
on  unlawful  love  as  a  very  great  sin,  though  there  may 
be  great  provocation  to  it." 

"It  is  an  awful  sin."    Mr.  Cradock  could  say  what 


THE  MOTHER  205 

he  liked  on  that  subject;  he  might  tell  Mrs.  Hilary 
that  it  was  not  awful  except  in  so  far  as  any  other 
yielding  to  nature's  promptings  in  defiance  of  the  law 
of  man  was  awful,  but  he  could  not  persuade  her.  Like 
many  other  people,  she  set  that  particular  sin  apart,  in 
a  special  place  by  itself;  she  would  talk  of  "a  bad 
woman,"  "an  immoral  man,"  a  girl  who  had  "lost  her 
character,"  and  mean  merely  the  one  kind  of  badness, 
the  one  manifestation  of  immorality,  the  one  element 
in  character.  Dishonesty  and  cruelty  she  could  for- 
give, but  never  that. 

"I  shall  start  in  three  days,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  be- 
coming tragically  resolute.  "I  must  tell  Mr.  Cradock 
to-morrow." 

"That  young  man?  Must  he  know  about  Nan's 
affairs,  my  dear?" 

"I  have  to  tell  him  everything,  mother.  It's  part 
of  the  course.    He  is  as  secret  as  the  grave." 

Grandmama  knew  that  Emily,  less  secret  than  the 
grave,  would  have  to  ease  herself  of  the  sad  tale  to 
someone  or  other  in  the  course  of  the  next  day,  and 
supposed  that  it  had  better  be  to  Mr.  Cradock,  who 
seemed  to  be  a  kind  of  hybrid  of  doctor  and  clergyman, 
and  so  presumably  was  more  discreet  than  an  ordinary 
human  being.  Emily  must  tell.  Emily  always  would. 
That  was  why  she  enjoyed  this  foolish  psycho-analysis 
business  so  much. 

At  the  very  thought  of  it  a  gleam  had  brightened 
Mrs.  Hilary's  eyes,  and  her  rigid,  tense  pose  had  re- 
laxed. Oh  the  comfort  of  telling  Mr.  Cradock!  Even 
if  he  did  tell  her  how  it  was  all  in  the  course  of  nature, 
at  least  he  would  sympathise  with  her  trouble  about 
it,  and  her  annoyance  with  Grandmama.  And  he  would 
tell  her  how  best  to  deal  with  Nan  when  she  got  to 
her.     Nan's  was  the  sort  of  case  that  Mr.  Cradock 


2o6  DANGEROUS  AGES 

really  did  understand.  Any  situation  between  the  sexes 
— he  was  all  over  it.  Psycho-analysts  adored  sex;  they 
made  an  idol  of  it.  They  communed  with  it,  as  devotees 
with  their  God.  They  couldn't  really  enjoy,  with  their 
whole  minds,  anything  else,  Mrs.  Hilary  sometimes 
vaguely  felt.  But  as,  like  the  gods  of  the  other  devotees, 
it  was  to  them  immanent,  everywhere  and  in  every- 
thing; they  could  be  always  happy.  If  they  went  up 
into  heaven  it  was  there;  if  they  fled  down  into  hell  it 
was  there  also.  Once,  when  Mrs.  Hilary  had  tenta- 
tively suggested  that  Freud,  for  instance,  over-stated 
its  importance,  Mr.  Cradock  had  said  firmly  "It  is  im- 
possible to  do  that,"  which  settled  it  once  and  for  all. 

Mrs.  Hilary  stood  up.  Her  exalted,  tragic  mood 
clothed  her  like  a  flowing  garment. 

"I  shall  write  to  Cook,"  she  said.  "Also  to  Nan,  to 
tell  her  I  am  coming." 

Grandmama,  after  a  moment's  silence,  seemed  to 
gather  herself  together  for  a  final  effort. 

"Emily,  my  child.    Is  your  mind  set  to  do  this?" 

"Absolutely,  mother.    Absolutely  and  entirely." 

"Shall  I  tell  you  what  I  think?  No,  you  don't  want 
to  hear  it,  but  you  drive  me  to  it.  .  .  .  If  you  go  to 
that  foolish,  reckless  child  and  attempt  to  interfere 
with  her,  or  even  to  question  her,  you  will  run  the  risk, 
if  she  is  innocent,  of  driving  her  into  what  you  are 
trying  to  prevent.  If  she  is  already  committed  to  it, 
you  run  the  risk  of  shutting  the  door  against  her  re- 
turn. In  either  case  you  will  alienate  her  from  your- 
self: that  is  the  least  of  the  risks  you  run,  though  the 
most  certain.  .  .  .  That  is  all.  I  can  say  no  more. 
But  I  ask  you,  my  dear  ...  I  beg  you,  for  the  child's 
sake  and  your  own  ...  to  write  neither  to  Cook  nor 
to  Nan." 

Grandmama's  breath  came  rather  fast  and  heavily; 


THE  MOTHER  207 

her  heart  was  troubling  her;  emotion  and  effort  were 
not  good  for  it. 

Mrs.  Hilary  stood  looking  down  at  the  old  shrunk 
figure,  shaking  a  little  as  she  stood,  knowing  that  she 
must  be  patient  and  calm. 

"You  will  please  allow  me  to  judge.  You  will  please 
let  me  take  the  steps  I  think  necessary  to  help  my  child. 
I  know  that  you  have  no  confidence  in  my  judgment 
or  my  tact;  you've  always  shown  that  plainly  enough, 
and  done  your  best  to  teach  my  children  the  same 
view  of  me.  .  .  ." 

Grandmama  put  up  her  hand,  meaning  that  she  could 
not  stand,  neither  she  nor  her  heart  could  stand,  a 
scene.  Mrs.  Hilary  broke  off.  For  once  she  did  not 
want  a  scene  either.  In  these  days  she  found  what 
vent  was  necessary  for  her  emotional  system  in  her 
interviews  with  Mr.  Cradock. 

"I  daresay  you  mean  well,  mother.  But  in  this  mat- 
ter I  must  be  the  judge.  I  am  a  mother  first  and  fore- 
most. It  is  the  only  thing  that  life  has  left  for  me  to 
be."  (Scarcely  a  daughter,  she  meant:  that  was  made 
too  difficult  for  her;  you  would  almost  imagine  that 
the  office  was  not  wanted.) 

She  turned  to  the  writing  table. 

"First  of  all  I  shall  write  to  Rosalind,  and  tell  her 
what  I  think  of  her  and  her  abominable  gossip." 

She  began  to  write. 

Grandmama  sat  shrunk  and  old  and  tired  in  her 
chair. 

Mrs.  Hilary's  pen  scratched  over  the  paper,  telling 
Rosalind  what  she  thought. 

"Dear  Rosalind,"  she  wrote,  "I  was  very  much  sur- 
prised at  your  letter.  I  do  not  know  why  you  should 
trouble  to  repeat  to  me  these  ridiculous  stories  about 
Nan.    You  cannot  suppose  that  I  am  likely  to  care 


2o8  DANGEROUS  AGES 

either  what  you  or  any  of  your  friends  are  saying  about 
one  of  my  children.  .  .  ."  And  so  on.  One  knows  the 
style.  It  eases  the  mind  of  the  writer  and  does  not 
deceive  the  reader.  When  the  reader  is  Rosalind  Hilary 
it  amuses  her  vastly. 


Next  day,  at  three  p.m.,  Mrs.  Hilary  told  Mr.  Cra- 
dock  all  about  it.  Mr.  Cradock  was  not  in  the  least 
surprised.  Nor  had  he  the  slightest,  not  the  remotest 
doubt  that  Nan  and  Stephen  Lumley  were  doing  what 
Mrs.  Hilary  called  living  in  sin,  what  he  preferred  to 
call  obeying  the  natural  ego.  (After  all,  as  any  theo- 
logian would  point  out,  the  terms  are  synonymous  in 
a  fallen  world.) 

"I  must  have  your  advice,"  Mrs.  Hilary  said.  "You 
must  tell  me  what  line  to  take  with  her." 

"Shall  you,"  Mr.  Cradock  enquired,  thoughtful  and 
intelligent,  "find  your  daughter  in  a  state  of  conflict?" 

Mrs.  Hilary  spread  her  hands  helplessly  before  her. 

"I  know  nothing;  nothing." 

"A  very  great  deal,"  said  Mr.  Cradock,  "depends  on 
that.  If  she  is  torn  between  the  cravings  of  the  primi- 
tive ego  and  the  inhibitions  put  upon  these  cravings  by 
the  conventions  of  society — if,  in  fact,  her  censor,  her 
endopsychic  censor,  is  still  functioning.  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  I  doubt  if  Nan's  got  an  endopsychic  censor. 
She  is  so  lawless  always." 

"Every  psyche  has  a  censor."  Mr.  Cradock  was 
firm.  "Regarded,  of  course,  by  the  psyche  with  very 
varying  degrees  of  respect.  Well,  what  I  mean  to  say 
is,  if  your  daufzhter  is  in  a  state  of  conflict,  with  forces 
pulling  her  both  ways,  her  case  will  be  very  much  easie^ 


THE  MOTHER  209 

to  deal  with  than  if  she  has  let  her  primitive  ego  so 
take  possession  of  the  situation  that  she  feels  in  a 
state  of  harmony.  In  the  former  case,  you  will  only 
have  to  strengthen  the  forces  which  are  opposing  her 
sexual  craving.  .  .  ." 

Mrs.  Hilary  fidgeted  uneasily.  "Oh,  I  don't  think 
Nan  feels  that  exactly.    None  of  my  children.  .  .  ." 

Mr.  Cradock  gave  her  an  amused  glance.  It  seemed 
sometimes  that  he  would  never  get  this  foolish  lady 
properly  educated. 

"Your  children,  I  presume,  are  human,  Mrs.  Hilary, 
Sexual  craving  means  a  craving  for  intimacy  with  a 
member  of  another  sex." 

"Oh  well,  I  suppose  it  does.  I  don't  care  for  the 
name,  somehow.    But  please  go  on." 

"I  was  going  to  say,  if  you  find,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  your  daughter's  nature  has  attained  harmony  in 
connection  with  this  course  she  is  pursuing,  your  task 
will  be  far  more  difficult.  You  will  then  have  to  create 
a  discord,  instead  of  merely  strengthening  it.  .  .  .  May 
I  ask  your  daughter's  age?" 

"Nan  is  thirty-three." 

"A  dangerous  age." 

"All  Nan's  ages,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  "have  been  dan- 
gerous.   Nan  is  like  that." 

"As  to  that,"  said  Mr.  Cradock,  "we  may  say  that 
all  ages  are  dangerous  to  all  people,  in  this  dangerous 
life  we  live.    But  the  thirties  are  a  specially  dangerous 
time  for  women.     They  have  outlived  the  shynesses/ 
and  restraints  of  girlhood,  and  not  attained  to  the  I 
caution  and  discretion  of  middle  age.    They  are  reck-  \ 
less,  and  consciously  or  unconsciously  on  the  lookout  / 
for  adventure.     They  see  ahead  of  them  the  end  oi\ 
youth,  and  that  quickens  their  pace.  .  .  .  Has  passion 
always  been  a  strong  element  in  your  daughter's  life?"' 


2IO  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"Oh,  passion.  .  .  ."  (Another  word  not  hked  by 
Mrs.  Hilary.)  "Not  quite  that,  I  should  say.  Nan  has 
been  reckless;  she  has  got  into  scrapes,  got  herself 
talked  about.  She  has  played  about  with  men  a  good 
deal  always.    But  as  to  passion  .  .  ." 

"A  common  thing  enough,"  Mr.  Cradock  told  her,  as 
it  were  reassuringly.  "Nothing  to  fight  shy  of,  or  be 
afraid  of.  But  something  to  be  regulated  of  course. 
.  .  .  Now,  the  thing  is  to  oppose  to  this  irregular  de- 
sire of  your  daughter's  for  this  man  a  new  and  a 
stronger  set  of  desires.  Fight  one  group  of  complexes 
with  another.  You  can't,  I  suppose,  persuade  her  to  be 
analysed?    There  are  good  analysts  in  Rome." 

"Oh  no.  Nan  laughs  at  it.  She  laughs  at  every- 
thing of  that  sort," 

"A  great  mistake.  A  mistake  often  made  by  shallow 
and  foolish  people.  They  might  as  well  laugh  at 
surgery.  .  .  .  Weil  now,  to  go  into  this  question  of  the 
battle  between  the  complex-groups.  .  .  ." 

He  went  into  it,  patiently  and  exhaustively.  His 
phrases  drifted  over  Mrs.  Hilary's  head. 

"...  a  deterrent  force  residing  in  the  ego  and  pre- 
venting us  from  stepping  outside  the  bounds  of  pro- 
priety. .  .  .  Rebellious  messages  sent  up  from  the 
Unconscious,  which  wishes  to  live,  love  and  act  in 
archaic  modes  .  .  .  conflict  with  the  progress  of  human 
society  .  .  .  inhibitory  and  repressive  power  of  the 
censor.  .  .  ."  (How  wonderful,  thought  Mrs.  Hilary, 
to  be  able  to  talk  so  like  a  book  for  so  long  together ! ) 
.  .  .  "give  the  censor  all  the  help  we  can  .  .  .  keep 
the  Unconscious  in  order  by  turning  its  energies  into 
some  other  channel  .  .  .  give  it  a  substitute,  .  ,  ,  The 
energy  involved  in  the  intense  desire  for  someone  of 
another  sex  can  be  diverted  .  .  .  employed  on  some 
useful  work.    Libido  ...  it  should  all  be  used.    Find 


THE  MOTHER  2n 

another  channel  for  your  daughter's  libido.  .  .  .  Her 
life  is  perhaps  a  rather  vacant  one?" 

That  Mrs.  Hilary  was  able  to  reply  to. 

"Nan's?  Vacant?  Oh  no.  She  is  quite  full  of 
energy.  Too  full.  Always  doing  a  thousand  things. 
And  she  writes,  you  know." 

"Ah.  That  should  be  an  outlet.  A  great  deal  of 
libido  is  used  up  by  that.  Well,  her  present  strong 
desire  for  this  man  should  be  sublimated  into  a  desire 
for  something  else.  I  gather  that  her  root  trouble  is 
lawlessness.  That  can  be  cured.  You  must  make  her 
remember  her  first  lawless  action."  (Man's  first  dis- 
obedience and  the  fruit  thereof,  thought  Mrs.  Hilary.) 

"O  dear  me,"  she  said,  "I'm  afraid  that  would  be 
impossible.  When  she  was  a  month  old  she  used  to 
attempt  to  dash  her  bottle  onto  the  floor." 

"People  have  even  remembered  their  baptisms,  when 
driven  back  to  them  by  analysis." 

"Our  children  were  not  baptised.  My  husband  was 
something  of  a  Unitarian.  He  said  he  would  not  tie 
them  up  with  a  rite  against  which  they  might  react  in 
later  life.    So  they  were  merely  registered." 

"Ah.  In  a  way  that  is  a  pity.  Baptism  is  an  im- 
pressive moment  in  the  sensitive  consciousness  of  the 
infant.  It  has  sometimes  been  found  to  be  a  sort  of 
lamp  shining  through  the  haze  of  the  early  memory. 
Registration,  owing  to.  the  non-participation  of  the  in- 
fant, is  useless  in  that  way." 

"Nan  might  remember  how  she  kicked  me  when  I 
short-coated  her,"  Mrs.  Hilary  mused,  hopefully. 

Mr.  Cradock  flowed  on.  Mrs.  Hilary,  listened,  as- 
sented, was  impressed.  It  all  sounded  so  simple,  so 
wonderful,  even  so  beautiful.  But  she  thought  once  or 
twice,  "He  doesn't  know  Nan." 

"Thank  you,"  she  said,  rising  to  go  when  her  hour 


212  DANGEROUS  AGES 

was  over.  "You  have  made  me  feel  so  much  stronger, 
as  usual.  I  can't  thank  you  enough  for  all  you  do  for 
me.  I  could  face  none  of  my  troubles  and  problems 
but  for  your  help." 

"That  merely  means,"  said  Mr.  Cradock,  who  al- 
ways got  the  last  word,  "that  your  ego  is  at  present  in 
what  is  called  the  state  of  infantile  dependence  or 
tutelage.  A  necessary  but  an  impermanent  stage  in  its 
struggle  towards  the  adult  level  of  the  reality-prin- 
ciple." 

"I  suppose  so,"  Mrs.  Hilary  said.    "Good-bye." 
"He  is  too  clever  for  me,"  she  thought,  as  she  went 
home.     "He  is  often  above  my  head."     But  she  was 
used  to  that  in  the  people  she  met. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  DAUGHTER 


Mrs.  Hilary  hated  travelling,  which  is  indeed  detest- 
able. The  Channel  was  choppy  and  she  a  bad  sailor; 
the  train  from  Calais  to  Paris  continued  the  motion, 
and  she  remained  a  bad  sailor  (bad  sailors  often  do 
this).  She  lay  back  and  smelled  salts,  and  they  were  of 
no  avail.  At  Paris  she  tried  and  failed  to  dine.  She 
passed  a  wretched  night,  being  of  those  who  detest 
nights  in  trains  without  wagons-lits,  but  save  money  by 
not  having  wagons-lits,  and  wonder  dismally  all  night 
if  it  is  worth  it.  Modane  in  the  chilly  morning  annoyed 
her  as  it  annoys  us  all.  The  customs  people  were 
rude  and  the  other  travellers  in  the  way.  Mrs.  Hilary, 
who  was  not  good  in  crowds,  pushed  them,  getting  ex- 
cited and  red  in  the  face.  Psycho-analysis  had  made 
her  more  patient  and  calm  than  she  had  been  before, 
but  even  so,  neither  patient  nor  calm  when  it  came  to 
jostling  crowds. 

"I  am  not  strong  enough  for  all  this,"  she  thought, 
in  the  Mont  Cenis  tunnel. 

Rushing  out  of  it  into  Italy,  she  thought,  '"Last  time 
I  was  here  was  in  '99,  with  Richard.  If  Richard  were 
here  now  he  would  help  me."  He  would  face  the  cus- 
toms at  Modane,  find  and  get  the  tickets,  deal  with  un- 
civil Germans — (Germans  were  often  uncivil  to  INIrs. 
Hilary  and  she  to  them,  and  though  she  had  not  met 

213 


214  DANGEROUS  AGES 

any  yet  on  this  journey,  owing  doubtless  to  their  state 
of  collapse  and  depression  consequent  on  the  Great 
Peace,  one  might  get  in  at  any  moment,  Germans  being 
naturally  buoyant).  Richard  would  have  got  hold  of 
pillows,  seen  that  she  was  comfortable  at  night,  told 
her  when  there  was  time  to  get  out  for  coffee  and  when 
there  wasn't  (Mrs.  Hilary  was  no  hand  at  this;  she 
would  try  no  runs  and  get  run  out,  or  all  but  run  out). 
And  Richard  would  have  helped  to  save  Nan.  Nan 
and  her  father  had  got  on  pretty  well,  for  a  naughty 
girl  and  an  elderly  parent.  They  had  appreciated  one 
another's  brains,  which  is  not  a  bad  basis.  They  had 
not  accepted  or  even  liked  one  another's  ideas  on  life, 
but  this  is  not  necessary  or  indeed  usual  in  families. 
Mrs.  Hilary  certainly  did  not  go  so  far  as  to  suppose 
that  Nan  would  have  obeyed  her  father  had  he  ap- 
peared before  her  in  Rome  and  bidden  her  change 
her  way  of  life,  but  she  might  have  thought  it  over. 
And  to  make  Nan  think  over  anything  which  she  bade 
her  do  would  be  a  phenomenal  task.  What  had  Mr. 
Cradock  said — make  her  remember  her  first  disobedi- 
ence, find  the  cause  of  it,  talk  it  out  with  her,  get  it 
into  the  open — and  then  she  would  be  cured  of  her 
present  lawlessness.  Why?  That  was  the  connection 
that  always  puzzled  Mrs.  Hilary  a  little.  Why  should 
remembering  that  you  had  done,  and  why  you  had 
done,  the  same  kind  of  thing  thirty  years  ago  cure  you 
of  doing  it  now?  Similarly,  why  should  remembering 
that  a  nurse  had  scared  you  as  an  infant  cure  you  of 
your  present  fear  of  burglars?  In  point  of  fact,  it 
didn't.  ]\Ir.  Cradock  had  tried  this  particular  cure  on 
Mrs.  Hilary.  It  must  be  her  own  fault,  of  course,  but 
somehow  she  had  not  felt  much  less  nervous  about 
noises  in  the  house  at  night  since  Mr.  Cradock  had 
brought  up  into  the  light,  as  he  called  it,  that  old  fright 


THE  DAUGHTER  215 

in  the  nursery.  After  all,  why  should  one?  However, 
hers  not  to  reason  why;  and  perhaps  the  workings  oi 
Nan's  mind  might  be  more  orthodox. 

At  Turin  Germans  got  in.  Of  course.  They  were 
all  over  Italy.  Italy  was  welcoming  them  with  both 
hands,  establishing  again  the  economic  entente.  These 
were  a  mother  and  a  backfisch,  and  they  looked  shyly 
and  sullenly  at  Mrs.  Hilary  and  the  other  English- 
woman in  the  compartment.  They  were  thin,  and  Mrs. 
Hilary  noted  it  with  satisfaction.  She  didn't  believe 
for  one  moment  in  starving  Germans,  but  these  cer- 
tainly did  not  look  so  prosperous  and  buxom  as  a  pre- 
war German  mother  and  backfisch  would  have  looked. 
They  were  equally  uncivil,  though.  They  pulled  both 
windows  up  to  the  top.  The  two  English  ladies 
promptly  pulled  them  down  half-way.  English  ladies 
are  the  only  beings  in  the  world  who  like  open  windows 
in  winter.  English  lower-class  women  do  not,  nor  do 
English  gentlemen.  If  you  want  to  keep  warm  while 
travelling  (to  frowst,  as  the  open  air  school  calls  it) 
do  not  get  in  with  well-bred  Englishwomen. 

The  German  mother  broke  out  in  angry  remon- 
strance, indicating  that  she  had  neuralgia  and  the  back- 
fisch a  cold  in  the  head.  There  followed  one  of  those 
quarrels  which  occur  on  this  topic  in  trains,  and  are  so 
bitter  and  devastating.  It  had  now  more  than  the 
pre-war  bitterness;  between  the  combatants  flowed 
rivers  of  blood;  behind  them  ranked  male  relatives 
killed  or  maimed  by  the  male  relatives  of  their  foes 
on  the  opposite  seat.  The  English  ladies  won.  Ger- 
many was  a  conquered  race,  and  knew  it.  In  revenge, 
the  backfisch  coughed  and  sneezed  "all  over  the  car- 
riage," as  Mrs.  Hilary  put  it,  "in  the  disgusting  German 
way,"  and  her  mother  made  noises  as  if  she  could  be 
sick  if  she  tried  hard  enough. 


2i6  DANGEROUS  AGES 

So  it  was  a  detestable  journey.  And  the  second 
night  in  the  train  was  worse  than  the  first.  For  the 
Germans,  would  you  believe  it,  shut  both  windows  while 
the  English  were  asleep,  and  the  English,  true  to  their 
caste  and  race,  woke  with  bad  headaches. 


When  they  got  to  Rome  in  the  morning  Mrs.  Hilary 
felt  thoroughly  ill.  She  had  to  strive  hard  for  self- 
control;  it  would  not  do  to  meet  Nan  in  an  unnerved, 
collapsed  state.  All  her  psychical  strength  was  neces- 
sary to  deal  with  Nan.  So  when  she  stood  on  the  plat- 
form with  her  luggage  she  looked  and  felt  not  only  like 
one  who  has  slept  (but  not  much)  in  a  train  for  two 
nights  and  fought  with  Germans  about  windows  but 
also  like  an  elderly  virgin  martyr  (spiritually  tense 
and  strung-up,  and  distraught,  and  on  the  line  between 
exultation  and  hysteria). 

Nan  v/as  there.  Nan,  pale  and  pinched,  and  looking 
plain  in  the  nipping  morning  air,  though  wrapped  in  a 
fur  coat.  (One  of  the  points  about  Nan  was  that, 
though  she  sometimes  looked  plain,  she  never  looked 
dowdy;  there  was  always  a  distinction,  a  chic,  about 
her.) 

Nan  kissed  her  mother  and  helped  with  the  luggage 
and  got  a  cab.  Nan  v/as  good  at  railway  stations  and 
such  places.    Mrs.  Hilary  was  not. 

They  drove  out  into  the  hideous  new  streets.  Mrs. 
Hilary  shivered. 

"Oh,  how  ugly!" 

"Rome  is  ugly,  this  part." 

"It's  worse  since  '99." 

But  she  did  not  really  remember  clearly  how  it  had 
looked  in  '99.    The  old  desire  to  pose,  to  show  that  she 


THE  DAUGHTER  217 

knew  something,  took  her.  Yet  she  felt  that  Nan,  who 
knew  that  she  knew  next  to  nothing,  would  not  be 
deceived. 

"Oh  ...  the  Forum!" 

"The  Forum  of  Trajan,"  Nan  said.  "We  don't  pass 
the  Roman  Forum  on  the  way  to  our  street." 

"The  Forum  of  Trajan,  of  course,  I  meant  that." 

But  she  knew  that  Nan  knew  she  had  meant  the 
Forum  Romanum. 

"Rome  is  always  Rome,"  she  said,  which  was  safer 
than  identifying  particular  buildings,  or  even  Forums, 
in  it.    "Nothing  like  it  anywhere." 

"How  long  can  you  stay,  mother?  I've  got  you  a 
room  in  the  house  I'm  lodging  in.  It's  in  a  little  street 
the  other  side  of  the  Corso.  Rather  a  mediaeval  street, 
I'm  afraid.  That  is,  it  smells.  But  the  rooms  are 
clean." 

"Oh,  I'm  not  staying  long.  .  .  .  We'll  talk  later;  talk 
it  all  out.  A  thorough  talk.  When  we  get  in.  After  a 
cup  of  tea.  .  .  ." 

Mrs.  Hilary  remembered  that  Nan  did  not  yet  know 
why  she  had  come.  After  a  cup  of  strong  tea.  ...  A 
cup  of  tea  first.  .  .  .  Coffee  wasn't  the  same.  One 
needed  tea,  after  those  awful  Germans.  She  told  Nan 
about  these.  Nan  knew  that  she  would  have  had  tire- 
some travelling  companions;  she  always  did;  if  it 
weren't  Germans  it  would  be  inconsiderate  English. 
She  was  unlucky. 

"Go  straight  to  bed  and  rest  when  we  get  in,"  Nan 
advised;  but  she  shook  her  head,    "We  must  talk  first." 

Nan,  she  thought,  looked  pinched  about  the  lips,  and 
thin,  and  her  black  brows  were  at  times  nervous  and 
sullen.  Nan  did  not  look  happy.  Was  it  guilt,  or 
merely  the  chill  morning  air? 

They  stopped  at  a  shabby  old  house  in  a  narrow 


2i8  DANGEROUS  AGES 

mediaeval  street  in  the  Borgo,  which  had  been  a  palace 
and  was  now  let  in  apartments.  Here  Nan  had  two 
bare,  gilded,  faded  rooms,  Mrs.  Hilary  sat  by  a  char- 
coal stove  in  one  of  them,  and  Nan  made  her  some  tea. 
After  the  tea  Mrs.  Hilary  felt  revived.  She  wouldn't 
go  to  bed;  she  felt  that  the  time  for  the  talk  had  come. 
She  looked  round  the  room  for  signs  of  Stephen  Lum- 
ley,  but  all  the  signs  she  saw  were  of  Nan;  Nan's  books. 
Nan's  proofs  strewing  the  table.  Of  course  that  bad 
man  wouldn't  come  while  she  was  there.  He  was  no 
doubt  waiting  eagerly  for  her  to  be  gone.  Probably 
they  both  were.  .  .  . 


"Nan "    They  were  still  sitting  by  the  stove,  and 

Nan  was  lighting  a  cigarette.  "Nan — do  you  guess 
why  I've  come?" 

Nan  threw  away  the  match. 

"No,  mother.  How  should  I?  .  .  .  One  does  come 
to  Rome,  I  suppose,  if  one  gets  a  chance." 

"Oh,  I've  not  come  to  see  Rome.  I  know  Rome. 
Long  before  you  were  born.  .  .  .  I've  come  to  see  you. 
And  to  take  you  back  with  me." 

Nan  glanced  at  her  quickly,  a  sidelong  glance  of 
suspicion  and  comprehension.  Her  lower  lip  projected 
stubbornly. 

"Ah,  I  see  you  know  what  I  mean.  Yes,  I've  heard. 
Rumours  reached  us — it  was  through  Rosalind,  of 
course.  And  I'm  afraid  .  .  .  I'm  afraid  that  for  once 
she  spoke  the  truth." 

"Oh  no,  she  didn't.  I  don't  know  what  Rosalind's 
been  saying  this  time,  but  it  would  be  odd  if  it  was 
the  truth." 


THE  DAUGHTER  219 

"Nan,  it's  no  use  denying  things.    I  know." 

It  was  true;  she  did  know.  A  few  months  ago  she 
would  have  doubted  and  questioned;  but  Mr.  Cradock 
had  taught  her  better.  She  had  learnt  from  him  the 
simple  truth  about  life;  that  is,  that  nearly  everyone  is 
nearly  always  involved  up  to  the  eyes  in  the  closest 
relationship  with  someone  of  another  sex.  It  is  nature's 
way  with  mankind.  Another  thing  she  had  learnt  from 
him  was  that  the  more  they  denied  it  the  more  it  was 
so;  protests  of  innocence  and  admissions  of  guilt  were 
alike  proofs  of  the  latter.  So  she  was  accurate  when 
she  said  that  it  was  no  use  for  Nan  to  deny  anything. 
It  was  no  use  whatever. 

Nan  had  become  cool  and  sarcastic — ^her  nastiest, 
most  dangerous  manner. 

''Do  you  think  you  would  care  to  be  a  little  more 
explicit,  mother?  I'm  afraid  I  don't  quite  follow. 
What  is  it  no  use  my  denying?    What  do  you  know?" 

Mrs.  Hilary  gathered  herself  together.  Her  head 
trembled  and  jerked  with  emotion;  wisps  of  her  hair, 
tousled  by  the  night,  escaped  over  her  collar.  She 
spoke  tremulously,  tensely,  her  hands  wrung  together. 

'That  you  are  going  on  with  a  married  man.  That 
you  are  his  mistress,"  she  said,  putting  it  at  its  crudest, 
since  Nan  wanted  plain  speaking. 

Nan  sat  quite  still,  smoking.  The  silence  thrilled 
with  idrs.  Hilary's  passion. 

"I  scf^,"  Nan  said  at  last.  "And  it's  no  use  my  deny- 
ing it.  In  that  case  I  won't."  Her  voice  was  smooth 
and  clear  and  still,  like  cold  water.  "You  know  the 
man's  name  too,  I  presume?" 

"Of  courre.  Everyone  knows  it.  I  tell  you.  Nan, 
everyone's  talking  of  you  and  him.  A  town  topic, 
Rosalind  calls  it." 


220  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"Rosalind  would.  Town  must  be  very  dull  just  now, 
if  that's  all  they  have  to  talk  of." 

"But  it's  not  the  scandal  I'm  thinking  of,"  Mrs. 
Hilary  went  on,  "though,  God  knows,  that's  bad  enough 
— I'm  thankful  Father  died  when  he  did  and  was 
spared  it — but  the  thing  itself.  The  awful,  awful  thing 
itself.    Have  you  no  shame,  Nan?" 

"Not  much." 

"For  all  our  sakes.  Not  for  mine — I  know  you  don't 
care  a  rap  for  that — but  for  Neville,  whom  you  do 
profess  to  love.  .  .  ." 

"I  should  think  we  might  leave  Neville  out  of  it. 
She's  shown  no  signs  of  believing  any  story  about  me." 

"Well,  she  does  believe  it,  you  may  depend  upon  it. 
No  one  could  help  it.  People  write  from  here  saying 
it's  an  open  fact." 

"People  here  can't  have  much  to  put  in  their  letters." 

"Oh,  they'll  make  room  for  gossip.  People  always 
will.  Always.  But  I'm  not  going  to  dwell  on  that  side 
of  things,  because  I  know  you  don't  care  what  anyone 
says.  It's  the  wrongiiess  of  it.  ...  A  married  man. 
,  .  .  Even  if  his  wife  divorces  him!  It  would  be  in 
the  papers.  .  .  .  And  if  she  doesn't  you  can't  ever 
marry  him.  .  .  .  Do  you  care  for  the  man?" 

"What  man?" 

"Don't  quibble.    Stephen  Lumley,  of  course." 

"Stephen  Lumley  is  a  friend  of  mine.  I'm  fond  of 
him." 

"I  don't  believe  you  do  love  him.  I  believe  it's  all 
recklessness  and  perversity.  Lawlessness.  That's  what 
Mr.  Cradock  said." 

"Mr,  Cradock?"    Nan's  eyebrows  went  up. 

Mrs.  Hilary  flushed  a  brighter  scarlet.  The  colour 
kept  running  over  her  face  and  going  back  again,  all 
the  time  she  was  talking. 


THE  DAUGHTER  221 

"Your  psj^cho-analyst  doctor,"  said  Nan,  and  her 
voice  was  a  little  harder  and  cooler  than  before.  "I 
suppose  you  had  an  interesting  conversation  with  him 
about  me." 

"I  have  to  tell  him  everything,"  Mrs.  Hilary  stam- 
mered. "It's  part  of  the  course.  I  did  consult  him 
about  you.  I'm  not  ashamed  of  it.  He  understands 
about  these  things.    He's  not  an  ordinary  man." 

"This  is  very  interesting."  Nan  lit  another  cigarette. 
"It  seems  that  I've  been  a  boon  all  round  as  a  town 
topic — to  London,  to  Rome  and  to  St.  Mary's  Bay. 
.  .  .  Well,  what  did  he  advise  about  me?" 

Mrs.  Hilary  remembered  vaguely  and  in  part,  but 
did  not  think  it  would  be  profitable  just  now  to  tell  Nan. 

"We  have  to  be  very  wise  about  this,"  she  said,  col- 
lecting herself.  "Very  wise  and  firm.  Lawlessness. 
...  I  wonder  if  you  remember.  Nan,  throwing  your 
shoes  at  my  head  when  you  were  three?" 

"No.  But  I  can  quite  believe  I  did.  It  was  the  sort 
of  thing  I  used  to  do." 

"Think  back,  Nan.  What  is  the  first  act  of  naughti- 
ness and  disobedience  you  remember,  and  what  moved 
you  to  it?" 

Nan,  Y\'ho  knew  a  good  deal  more  about  psycho- 
analysis than  Mrs.  Hilary  did,  laughed  curtly. 

"No  good,  mother.  That  won't  work  on  me.  I'm 
not  susceptible  to  the  treatment.  Too  hard-headed. 
WTiat  was  IMr.  Cradock's  next  brain-wave?" 

"Oh  well,  if  you  take  it  like  this,  what's  the 
use.  .  .  ." 

"None  at  all.  I  advise  you  not  to  bother  yourself. 
It  will  only  make  your  headache  worse.  .  .  .  Now  I 
think  after  all  this  excitement  you  had  better  go  and 
lie  down,  don't  you?    I'm  going  out,  anyhow." 

Then  Stephen  Lumley  knocked  at  the  door  and  came 


222  DANGEROUS  AGES 

in.  A  tall,  slouching  hollow-chested  man  of  forty,  who 
looked  unhappy  and  yet  cynically  amused  at  the  world. 
He  had  a  cough,  and  unusually  bright  eyes  under  over- 
hanging brows. 

Nan  said,  "This  is  Stephen  Lumley,  mother.  My 
mother,  Stephen,"  and  left  them  to  do  the  rest,  watch- 
ing, critical  and  aloof,  to  see  how  they  would  manage 
the  situation. 

Mrs.  Hilary  managed  it  by  rising  from  her  chair 
and  standing  rigidly  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  breath- 
ing hard  and  staring.  Stephen  Lumley  looked  en- 
quiringly at  Nan. 

"How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Hilary,"  he  said.  "I  expect 
you're  pretty  well  played  out  by  that  beastly  journey, 
aren't  you." 

Mrs.  Hilary's  voice  came  stifled,  choked,  between 
pants.  She  was  working  up;  or  rather  worked  up: 
Nan  knew  the  symptoms. 

"You  dare  to  come  into  my  presence.  ...  I  must 
ask  you  to  leave  my  daughter's  sitting-room  imme- 
diately. I  have  come  to  take  her  back  to  England 
with  me  at  once.  Please  go.  There  is  nothing  that  can 
possibly  be  said  between  you  and  me — nothing." 

Stephen  Lumley,  a  cool  and  quiet  person,  raised  his 
brows,  looked  enquiry  once  more  at  Nan,  found  no 
answer,  said,  "Well,  then,  I'll  say  good-bye,"  and 
departed. 

Mrs.  Hilary  wrung  her  hands  together. 

"How  dare  he!  How  dare  he!  Into  my  very  pres- 
ence!    He  has  no  shame.  .  .  ." 

Nan  watched  her  coolly.  But  a  red  spot  had  begun 
to  burn  in  each  cheek  at  her  mother's  opening  words 
to  Lumley,  and  still  burned.  Mrs.  Hilary  knew  of 
old  that  still-burning,  deadly  anger  of  Nan's. 

"Thank  you,  mother.     You've  helped  me  to  make 


THE  DAUGHTER  223 

up  my  mind.  I'm  going  to  Capri  with  Stephen  next 
week.  I've  refused  up  till  now.  He  was  going  with- 
out me.  You've  made  up  my  mind  for  me.  You  can 
tell  Mr.  Cradock  that  if  he  asks." 

Nan  was  fiercely,  savagely  desirous  to  hurt.  In  the 
same  spirit  she  had  doubtless  thrown  her  shoes  at  Mrs. 
Hilary  thirty  years  ago.  Rage  and  disgust,  hot  re- 
bellion and  sick  distaste — what  she  had  felt  then  she 
felt  now.  During  her  mother's  breathless  outbreak  at 
Stephen  Lumley,  standing  courteous  and  surprised  be- 
fore her,  she  had  crossed  her  Rubicon.  And  now  with 
flaming  words  she  burned  her  boats. 

Mrs.  Hilary  burst  into  tears.     But  her  tears  had 
never  yet  quenched  Nan's  flames.    Nan  made  her  lie 
down  and  gave  her  sal  volatile.    Sal  volatile  eases  the 
head  and  nervous  system  and  composes  the  manners,^ 
but  no  more  than  tears  does  it  quench  flames.  ) 


The  day  that  followed  was  strange,  and  does  not 
sound  likely,  but  Hfe  often  does  not.  Nan  took  Mrs. 
Hilary  out  to  lunch  at  a  trattoria  near  the  Forum,  as 
it  were  to  change  the  subject,  and  they  spent  the  usual 
first  afternoon  of  visitors  in  Rome,  who  hasten  to  view 
the  Forum  with  a  guide  to  the  most  recent  excavations 
in  their  hands.  Mrs.  Hilary  felt  completely  uninter- 
ested to-day  in  recent  or  any  other  excavations.  But, 
obsessed  even  now  with  the  old  instinctive  desire  (the 
fond  hope,  rather)  not  to  seem  unintelligent  before  her 
children,  more  especially  when  she  v/as  not  on  good 
terms  with  them,  she  accompanied  Nan,  who  firmly 
and  deftly  closed  or  changed  the  subjects  of  unlawful 
love,  Stephen  Lumley,  Capri,  returning  to  England,  and 


224  DANGEROUS  AGES 

her  infant  acts  of  wilfulness,  whenever  her  mother 
opened  them,  which  was  frequently,  as  Mrs.  Hilary 
found  these  things  easier  conversational  topics  than  the 
buildings  in  the  Forum.  Nan  was  determined  to  keep 
the  emotional  pressure  low  for  the  rest  of  the  day,  and 
she  was  fairly  competent  at  this  when  she  tried.  As 
Mrs.  Hilary  had  equal  gifts  at  keeping  it  high,  it  was 
a  well-matched  contest.  When  she  left  the  Forum  for 
a  tea  shop,  both  were  tired  out.  The  Forum  is  tiring; 
emotion  is  tiring;  tears  are  tiring;  quarrelling  is  tiring; 
travelling  through  to  Rome  is  tiring;  all  five  together 
are  annihilating. 

However,  they  had  tea. 

Mrs.  Hilary  was  cold  and  bitter  now,  not  hysterical. 
Nan,  who  w^as  living  a  bad  life,  and  was  also  tiresomely 
exactly  informed  about  the  differences  between  the 
Forum  in  '99  and  the  Forum  to-day  (a  subject  on  which 
Mrs.  Hilary  was  hazy)  was  not  fit,  until  she  came  to  a 
better  mind,  to  be  spoken  to.  Mrs.  Hilary  shut  her 
lips  tight  and  averted  her  reddened  eyes.  She  hated 
Nan  just  now.  She  could  have  loved  her  had  she  been 
won  to  repentance,  but  now — "Nan  was  never  like  the 
rest,"  she  thought. 

Nan  persisted  in  making  light,  equable  conversation, 
which  Mrs.  Hilary  thought  in  bad  taste.  She  talked 
of  England  and  the  family,  asked  after  Grandmama, 
Neville  and  the  rest. 

"Neville  is  extremely  ill,"  Mrs.  Hilary  said,  quite 
untruly,  but  that  was,  to  do  her  justice,  the  way  in 
which  she  alv»^a3^s  saw  illness,  particularly  Neville's. 
"And  worried  to  death  about  Gerda,  who  seems  to  have 
gone  off  her  head  since  that  accident  in  Cornwall.  She 
is  still  sticking  to  that  insane,  wicked  notion  about  not 
getting  married." 

Nan  had  heard  before  of  this. 


THE  DAUGHTER  225 

"She'll  give  that  up,"  she  said,  coolly,  "when  she 
finds  she  really  can't  have  Barry  if  she  doesn't.  Gerda 
gets  what  she  wants." 

"Oh,  you  all  do  that,  the  whole  lot  of  you.  .  .  .  And 
a  nice  example  you're  setting  the  child." 

"She'll  give  it  up,"  Nan  repeated,  keeping  the  con- 
versation on  Gerda.  "Gerda  hasn't  the  martyr  touch. 
She  won't  perish  for  a  principle.  She  wants  Barry  and 
she'll  have  him,  though  she  may  hold  out  for  a  time. 
Gerda  doesn't  lose  things,  in  the  end." 

"She's  a  very  silly  child,  and  I  suppose  she's  been 
mixing  with  dreadful  friends  and  picked  up  these  ideas. 
At  twenty  there's  some  excuse  for  ignorant  foolish- 
ness,"   But  none  at  thirty-three,  Mrs.  Hilary  meant. 

"Barry  Briscoe,"  she  added,  "is  being  quite  firm 
about  it.  Though  he  is  desperately  in  love  with  her, 
Neville  tells  me;  desperately." 

He's  soon  got  over  you,  even  if  he  did  care  for  you 
once,  and  even  if  you  did  send  him  away,  her  emphasis 
implied. 

In  Nan,  casually  flicking  the  ash  off  her  cigarette,  a 
queer  impulse  came  and  went.  For  a  moment  she 
wanted  to  cry;  to  drop  hardness  and  lightness  and  pre- 
tence, and  cry  like  a  child  and  say  "JMother,  comfort 
me.  Don't  go  on  hurting  me.  I  love  Barry.  Be  kind 
to  me,  oh  be  kind  to  me ! " 

If  she  had  done  it,  Mrs.  Hilary  would  have  taken 
her  in  her  arms  and  been  all  mother,  and  the  wound 
in  their  affection  would  have  been  temporarily  healed. 

Nan  said  nonchalantly  "I  suppose  he  is.  They're 
sure  to  be  all  right.  .  .  .  Now  what  next,  mother?  It's 
getting  dark  for  seeing  things." 

"I  am  tired  to  death,"  said  I\Irs.  Hilary.  "I  shall  go 
back  to  those  dreadful  rooms  and  try  to  rest.  ...  It 
has  been  an  awful  day.  ...  I  hate  Rome.     In  '99  it 


226  DANGEROUS  AGES 

was  so  different.  Father  and  I  went  about  together; 
he  showed  me  everything.  He  knew  about  it  all. 
Besides  .  .  ." 

Besides,  how  could  I  enjoy  sight-seeing  after  that 
scene  this  morning,  and  with  this  awful  calamity  that 
has  happened? 

They  went  back.  Mrs.  Hilary  was  desperately  miss- 
ing her  afternoon  hour  with  Mr.  Cradock.  She  had 
come  to  rely  on  it  on  a  Wednesday. 


Nan  sat  up  late,  correcting  proofs,  after  Mrs.  Hilary 
had  gone  to  bed.  Galleys  lay  all  round  her  on  the  floor 
by  the  stove.  She  let  them  slip  from  her  knee  and  lie 
there.     She  hated  them.  .  .  . 

She  pressed  her  hands  over  her  eyes,  shutting  them 
out,  shutting  out  life.  She  was  going  off  with  Stephen 
Lumley.  She  had  told  him  so  this  morning.  Both 
their  lives  were  broken;  hers  by  Barry,  whom  she 
loved,  his  by  his  wife,  whom  he  disliked.  He  loved 
her;  he  wanted  her.  She  could  with  him  find  relief, 
find  life  a  tolerable  thing.  They  could  have  a  good 
time  together.  They  were  good  companions;  their 
need,  though  dissimilar,  was  mutual.  They  saw  the 
same  beauty,  spoke  the  same  tongue,  laughed  at  the 
same  things.  In  the  very  thought  of  Stephen,  with 
his  cynical  humour,  his  clear,  keen  mind,  his  lazy  power 
of  brain.  Nan  had  found  relief  all  that  day,  reacting 
desperately  from  a  mind  fuddled  with  sentiment  and 
emotion  as  with  drink,  a  soft,  ignorant  brain,  which 
knew  and  cared  about  nothing  except  people,  a  hys- 
terical passion  of  anger  and  malice.  They  had  pushed 
her  sharply  and  abruptly  over  the  edge  of  decision. 


THE  DAUGHTER  227 

that  mind  and  brain  and  passion.  Stephen,  against 
whom  their  fierce  anger  was  concentrated,  was  so 
different.  .  .  . 

To  get  away,  to  get  right  away  from  everything  and 
everyone,  with  Stephen.  Not  to  have  to  go  back  to 
London  alone,  to  see  what  she  could  not,  surely,  bear 
to  see — Barry  and  Gerda,  Gerda  and  Barry,  always, 
everywhere,  radiant  and  in  love.  And  Neville,  Gerda's 
mother,  who  saw  so  much.  And  Rosalind,  who  saw 
everything,  everything,  and  said  so.  And  Mrs. 
Hilary.  .  .  . 

To  saunter  round  the  queer,  lovely  corners  of  the 
earth  with  Stephen,  light  oneself  by  Stephen's  clear, 
flashing  mind,  look  after  Stephen's  weak,  neglected 
body  as  he  never  could  himself  .  .  .  that  was  the  only 
anodyne.  Life  would  then  some  time  become  an  ad- 
venture again,  a  gay  stroll  through  the  fair,  instead  of 
a  desperate  sickness  and  nightmare. 

Barry,  oh  Barry.  .  .  .  Nan,  who  had  thought  she 
was  getting  better,  found  that  she  was  not.  Tears 
stormed  and  shook  her  at  last.  She  crumpled  up  on 
the  floor  among  the  galley-slips,  her  head  upon  the 
chair. 

Those  damned  proofs — who  wanted  them?  What 
were  books?    What  was  anything? 


Mrs.  Hilary  came  in,  in  her  dressing-gown,  red-eyed. 
She  had  heard  strangled  sounds,  and  knew  that  her 
child  was  crying. 

"My  darling!" 

Her  arms  were  round  Nan's  shoulders;  she  was 
kneeling  among  the  proofs. 


228  DANGEROUS  AGES 

"My  little  girl— Nan!" 

"Mother.  .  .  ." 

They  held  each  other  close.  It  was  a  queer  moment, 
though  not  an  unprecedented  one  in  the  stormy  history 
of  their  relations  together.  A  queer,  strange,  com- 
forting, healing  moment,  the  fleeting  shadow  of  a  great 
rock  in  a  barren  land;  a  strayed  fragment  of  some- 
thing which  should  have  been  between  them  always 
but  was  not.    Certainly  an  odd  moment. 

"My  own  baby.  .  .  .  You're  unhappy.  .  .  ." 

"Unhappy — yes.  .  .  .  Darling  mother,  it  can't  be 
helped.  Nothing  can  be  helped.  .  .  .  Don't  let's  talk 
.  .  .  darling." 

Strange  words  from  Nan.  Strange  for  Mrs.  Hilary 
to  feel  her  hand  held  against  Nan's  wet  cheek  and 
kissed. 

Strange  moment:  and  it  could  not  last.  The  crying^ 
child  wants  its  mother;  the  mother  wants  to  comfort 
the  crying  child.  A  good  bridge,  but  one  inadequate 
for  the  strain  of  daily  traffic.  The  child,  having  dried 
its  tears,  watches  the  bridge  break  again,  and  thinks 
it  a  pity  but  inevitable.  The  mother,  less  philosophic, 
may  cry  in  her  turn,  thinking  perhaps  that  the  bridge 
may  be  built  this  time  in  that  way;  but,  the  child  hav- 
ing the  colder  heart,  it  seldom  is. 

There  remain  the  moments,  impotent  but  inde- 
structible. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

YOUTH  TO  YOUTH 


Kay  was  home  for  the  Christmas  vacation.  He  was 
full,  not  so  much  of  Cambridge,  as  of  schemes  for 
establishing  a  co-operative  press  next  year.  He  was 
learning  printing  and  binding,  and  wanted  Gerda  to 
learn  too. 

"Because,  if  you're  really  not  going  to  marry  Barry, 
and  if  Barry  sticks  to  not  having  you  without,  you'll 
be  rather  at  a  loose  end,  won't  you,  and  you  may  as 
well  come  and  help  us  with  the  press.  .  .  .  But  of 
course,  you  know,"  Kay  added  absently,  his  thoughts 
still  on  the  press,  "I  should  advise  you  to  give  up  on 
that  point." 

"Give  up,  Kay?     Marry,  do  you  mean?" 
"Yes.  ...  It  doesn't  seem  to  me  to  be  a  point  worth 
making  a  fuss  about.    Of  course  I  agree  with  5^ou  in 
theory — I  always  have.    But  I've  come  to  think  lately 
that  it's  not  a  point  of  much  importance.     And  per- 
fectly sensible  people  are  doing  it  all  the  time.    You 
know  Jimmy  Kenrick  and  Susan  Mallow  have  done 
it?     They  used  to  say  they  v/ouldn't,  but  they  have. 
I  The  fact  is,  people  do  do  it,  whatever  they  say  about 
'   it  beforehand.     And  though  in  theory  it's  absurd,  it 
seems  often  to  work  out  pretty  VvtII  in  actual  life.    Per- 
sonally I  should  make  no  bones  about  it,  if  I  wanted 
-.  a  girl  and  she  wanted  marriage.    Of  course  a  girl  can 
\  229 


230  DANGEROUS  AGES 

always  go  on  being  called  by  her  own  name  if  she 
likes.    That  has  points." 

'*0f  course  one  could  do  that,"  Gerda  pondered. 

"It's  a  sound  plan  in  some  ways.  It  saves  trouble 
and  explanation  to  go  on  with  the  name  you've  pub- 
lished your  things  under  before  marriage.  ...  By  the 
way,  what  about  your  poems,  Gerda?  They'll  be  about 
ready  by  the  time  we  get  our  press  going,  won't  they? 
We  can  afford  to  have  some  slight  stuff  of  that  sort 
if  we  get  hold  of  a  few  really  good  things  to  start 
with,  to  make  our  name." 

Gerda's  thoughts  were  not  on  her  poems,  nor  on 
Kay's  press,  but  on  his  advice  about  matrimony.  For 
the  first  time  she  wavered.  If  Kay  thought  that.  .  .  . 
It  set  the  business  in  a  new  light.  And  of  course  other 
people  were  doing  it;  sound  people,  the  people  who 
talked  the  same  language  and  belonged  to  the  same 
set  as  one's  self. 

Kay  had  spoken.  It  was  the  careless,  authentic  voice 
of  youth  speaking  to  youth.  It  was  a  trumpet  blast 
making  a  breach  in  the  walls  against  which  the  bat- 
teries of  middle  age  had  thundered  in  vain.  Gerda  told 
herself  that  she  must  look  further  into  this,  think  it 
over  again,  talk  it  over  vvith  other  people  of  the  age 
to  know  what  was  right.  If  it  could  be  managed  with 
honour,  she  would  find  it  a  great  relief  to  give  up  on 
this  point.  For  Barry  was  so  firm;  he  would  never 
give  up;  and,  after  all,  one  of  them  must,  if  it  could 
be  done  with  a  clear  conscience. 


Ten  days  later  Gerda  said  to  Barry,  "I've  been  think- 
ing it  over  again,  Barry,  and  I've  decided  that  perhaps 
it  will  be  all  right  for  us  to  get  married  after  all." 


YOUTH  TO  YOUTH  231 

Barry  took  both  her  hands  and  kissed  each  in  turn, 
to  show  that  he  was  not  triumphing  but  adoring. 

"You  mean  it?  You  feel  you  can  really  do  it  with- 
out violating  your  conscience?    Sure,  darling?" 

"Yes,  I  think  I'm  sure.  Lots  of  quite  sensible,  good 
people  have  done  it  lately." 

"Oh  any  number,  of  course — if  that's  any  reason." 

"Not,  not  those  people.  My  sort  of  people,  I  mean. 
People  who  beheve  what  I  do,  and  wouldn't  tie  them- 
selves up  and  lose  their  liberty  for  anything." 

"I  agree  with  Lenin.  He  says  hberty  is  a  bourgeois 
dream." 

"Barry,  I  may  keep  my  name,  mayn't  I?  I  may  still 
be  called  Gerda  Bendish,  by  people  in  general?" 

"Of  course,  if  you  like.  Rather  silly,  isn't  it?  Be- 
cause it  won't  be  your  name.  But  that's  your  con- 
cern." 

"It's  the  name  I've  always  written  and  drawn  under, 
you  see." 

"Yes.  I  see  your  point.  Of  course  you  shall  be 
Gerda  Bendish  anywhere  you  like,  only  not  on  cheques, 
if  you  don't  mind." 

"And  I  don't  much  want  to  wear  a  wedding  ring, 
Barry." 

"That's  as  you  like,  too,  of  course.  You  might  keep 
it  in  your  purse  when  travelling,  to  produce  if  censori- 
ous hotel  keepers  look  askance  at  us.  Even  the  most 
abandoned  ladies  do  that  sometimes,  I  believe.  Or 
your  marriage  lines  will  do  as  well.  .  .  .  Gerda,  you 
blessed  darling,  it's  most  frightfully  decent  and  sport- 
ing of  you  to  have  changed  your  mind  and  owned  up. 
Next  time  we  differ  I'll  try  and  be  the  one  to  do  it,  I 
honestly  will.  ...  I  say,  let's  come  out  b^v'  oursalves 
and  dine  and  do  a  theatre,  to  celebrate  the  occasion." 

So  they  celebrated  the  triumph  of  institutionalism. 


232  DANGEROUS  AGES 


Their  life  together,  thought  Barry,  would  be  a  keen,  f 
jolly,  adventuring  business,  an  ardent  thing,  full  of 
gallant  dreams  and  endeavours.  It  should  never  grow  ^ 
tame  or  stale  or  placid,  never  lose  its  fine  edge.  There 
would  be  mountain  peak  beyond  mountain  peak  to 
scale  together.  They  would  be  co-workers,  playmates, 
friends  and  lovers  all  at  once,  and  they  would  walk  in 
liberty  as  in  a  bourgeois  dream. 

So  planned  Barry  Briscoe,  the  romantic,  about  whose 
head  the  vision  splendid  always  hovered,  a  realisable, 
capturable  thing. 

Gerda  thought,  "I'm  happy.  Poetry  and  drawing 
and  Barry.  I've  everything  I  want,  except  a  St. 
Bernard  pup,  and  Kay's  giving  me  that  for  Christmas. 
I'm  happy." 

It  was  a  tingling,  intense,  sensuous  feeling,  like 
stretching  warm  before  a  good  fire,  or  lying  in  fragrant 
thymy  woods  in  June,  in  the  old  Junes  when  suns  were 
hot.  Life  w^as  a  song  and  a  dream  and  a  summer 
morning, 

"You're  happy,  Gerda,"  Neville  said  to  her  once, 
gladly  but  half  wistfully,  and  she  nodded,  with  her 
small  gleaming  smile. 

"Go  on  being  happy,"  Neville  told  her,  and  Gerda 
did  not  know  that  she  had  nearly  added  "for  it's  cost 
rather  a  lot,  your  happiness."  Gerda  seldom  cared  how 
much  things  had  cost;  she  did  not  waste  thought  on 
such  matters.    She  was  happy. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  DREAM 


Barry  and  Gerda  were  married  in  January  in  a  regis- 
try office,  and,  as  all  concerned  disliked  wedding 
parties,  there  was  no  wedding  party. 

After  they  had  gone,  Neville,  recovered  now  from 
the  lilies  and  languors  of  illness,  plunged  into  the  roses 
and  raptures  of  social  life.  One  mightn't,  she  said  to 
herself,  be  able  to  accomplish  much  in  this  world,  or 
imprint  one's  personality  on  one's  environment  by 
deeds  and  achievements,  but  one  could  at  least  enjoy 
life,  be  a  pleased  participator  in  its  spoils  and  pleasures, 
an  enchanted  spectator  of  its  never-ending  flux  and 
pageant,  its  richly  glowing  moving  pictures.  One  could 
watch  the  play  out,  even  if  one  hadn't  much  of  a  part 
oneself.  Music,  art,  drama,  the  company  of  eminent, 
pleasant  and  entertaining  persons,  all  the  various  forms 
of  beauty,  the  carefully  cultivated  richness,  graces  and 
elegances  which  go  to  build  up  the  world  of  the  fortu- 
nate, the  cultivated,  the  prosperous  and  the  well-bred — 
Neville  walked  among  these  like  the  soul  in  the  lordly 
pleasure  house  built  for  her  by  the  poet  Tennyson,  or 
like  Robert  Browning  glutting  his  sense  upon  the  world 
— "Miser,  there  waits  the  gold  for  thee!" — or  Francis 
Thompson  swinging  the  earth  a  trinket  at  his  wrist.  In 
truth,  she  was  at  times  self-consciously  afraid  that  she 
resembled  all  these  three,  whom  (in  the  moods  they 
thus  expressed)  she  disliked  beyond  reason,  finding 
them  morbid  and  hard  to  please. 

233 


234  DANGEROUS  AGES 

She  too  knew  herself  morbid  and  hard  to  please.  If 
she  had  not  been  so,  to  be  Rodney's  wife  would  surely 
have  been  enough;  it  would  have  satisfied  all  her 
nature.  Why  didn't  it?  Was  it  perhaps  really  be- 
cause, though  she  loved  him,  it  was  not  with  the  un- 
critical devotion  of  the  early  days?  She  had  for  so 
many  years  now  seen  clearly,  through  and  behind  his 
charm,  his  weakness,  his  vanities,  his  scorching  ambi- 
tions and  jealousies,  his  petulant  angers,  his  depend- 
ence on  praise  and  admiration.  She  had  no  jealousy 
now  of  his  frequent  confidential  intimacies  with  other 
attractive  women;  they  were  harmless  enough,  and  he 
never  lost  the  need  of  and  dependence  on  her;  but  they 
may  have  helped  to  clarify  her  vision  of  him. 

Rodney  had  no  failings  beyond  what  are  the  com-/ 
mon  need  of  human  nature;   he  was  certainly  good  ] 
enough  for  her.    Their  marriage  was  all  right.    It  was    >, 
only  the  foolish  devil  of  egotism  in  her  which  goaded  to 
unwholesome  activity  the  other  side  of  her  nature,  that 
need  for  self-expression  which  marriage  didn't  satisfy,   i 


In  February  she  suddenly  tired  of  London  and  the 
British  climate,  and  was  moved  by  a  desire  to  travel. 
So  she  went  to  Italy,  and  stayed  in  Capri  with  Nan 
and  Stephen  Lumley,  who  were  leading  on  that  island 
lives  by  turns  gaily  indolent  and  fiercely  industrious, 
finding  the  company  stimulating  and  the  climate  agree- 
able and  soothing  to  Stephen's  defective  lungs. 

From  Italy  Neville  went  to  Greece.  Corinth,  Athens, 
the  islands,  Tempe,  Delphi,  Crete — how  good  to  have 
money  and  be  able  to  see  all  these  I  Italy  and  Greece 
are  Europe's  pleasure  grounds;  there  the  cultivated  and 


THE  DREAM  235 

the  prosperous  traveller  may  satisfy  his  soul  and  forget 
carking  cares  and  stabbing  ambitions,  and  drug  himself 
with  loveliness. 

If  Neville  abruptly  tired  of  it,  and  set  her  face 
homewards  in  early  April,  it  was  partly  because  she 
felt  the  need  of  Rodney,  and  partly  because  she  saw, 
fleetingly  but  day  by  day  more  lucidly,  that  one  could 
not  take  one's  stand,  for  satisfaction  of  desire,  on  the 
money  which  one  happened  to  have  but  which  the 
majority  bitterly  and  emptily  lacked.  Some  common 
way  there  had  to  be,  some  freedom  all  might  grasp,  a 
liberty  not  for  the  bourgeois  only,  but  for  the  pro- 
letariat— the  poor,  the  sad,  the  gay  proletariat,  who 
also  grew  old  and  lost  their  dreams,  and  had  not  the 
wherewithal  to  drug  their  souls,  unless  indeed  they 
drank  much  liquor,  and  that  is  but  a  poor  artificial 
way  to  peace. 

Voyaging  homewards  through  the  spring  seas,  Neville 
saw  life  as  an  entangling  thicket,  the  Woods  of  Wester- 
main  she  had  loved  in  her  childhood,  in  which  the  scaly 
dragon  squatted,  the  craving  monster  self  that  had  to  be 
subjugated  before  one  could  walk  free  in  the  enchanted 
woods. 

"Him  shall  change,  transforming  late, 
Wonderously  renovate.  .  .  ." 

Dimly  discerning  through  the  thicket  the  steep  path 
that  climbed  to  such  liberty  as  she  sought,  seeing  far 
off  the  place  towards  which  her  stumbling  feet  were  set, 
where  life  should  be  lived  with  alert  readiness  and  re- 
sponse, oblivious  of  its  personal  achievements,  its  per- 
sonal claims  and  spoils,  Neville  the  spoilt,  vain,  am- 
bitious, disappointed  egoist,  strained  her  eyes  into  the 
distance  and  half  smiled.  It  might  be  a  dream,  that 
liberty,  but  it  was  a  dream  worth  a  fight.  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  XVI 

TIME 


February  at  St.  Mary's  Bay.  The  small  fire  flickered 
and  fluttered  in  the  grate  with  a  sound  like  the  windy 
beating  of  wings.  The  steady  rain  sloped  against  the 
dosed  windows  of  The  Gulls,  and  dropped  patteringly 
on  the  asphalt  pavements  of  Marine  Crescent  outside, 
and  the  cold  grey  sea  tumbled  moaning. 

Grandmama  sat  in  her  arm-chair  by  the  hearth,  read- 
ing the  Autobiography  of  a  Cabinet  Minister's  Wife 
and  listening  to  the  fire,  the  sea  and  the  rain,  and  sleep- 
ing a  little  now  and  again. 

Mrs.  Hilary  sat  in  another  arm-chair,  surrounded  by 
bad  novels,  as  if  she  had  been  a  reviewer.  She  was  re- 
garding them,  too,  with  something  of  the  reviewer's 
pained  and  inimical  distaste,  dipping  now  into  one, 
shutting  it  with  a  sharp  sigh,  trying  another;  flinging  it 
on  the  floor  with  an  ejaculation  of  anger  and  fatigue. 

Grandmama  woke  with  a  start,  and  said  "What  fell? 
Did  something  fall?"  and  adjusted  her  glasses  and 
opened  the  Autobiography  again. 

"A  sadly  vulgar,  untruthful  and  ill-written  book. 
The  sort  of  autobiography  Gilbert's  wife  will  write 
when  she  has  time.  It  reminds  me  very  much  of  her 
letters,  and  is,  I  am  sure,  still  more  like  the  diary  which 

236 


TIME  237 

she  no  doubt  keeps.  Poor  Gilbert.  .  .  ."  Grandmama 
seemed  to  be  confusing  Gilbert  momentarily  with  the 
Cabinet  Minister.  "I  remember,"  she  went  on,  "meet- 
ing this  young  woman  at  Oxford,  in  the  year  of  the  first 
Jubilee.  ...  A  very  bright  talker.  They  can  so  sel- 
dom write.  .  .  ."  She  dozed  again. 

"Will  this  intolerable  day,"  Mrs.  Hilary  enquired 
of  the  housemaid  who  came  in  to  make  up  the  fire, 
"never  be  over?  I  suppose  it  will  be  bed-time  some 
time.  .  .  ." 

"It's  just  gone  a  quarter  past  six,  ma'am,"  said  the 
housemaid,  offering  little  hope,  and  withdrew. 

Mrs.  Hilary  went  to  the  window  and  drew  back  the 
curtains  and  looked  out  at  Marine  Crescent  in  the 
gloomy,  rainy  twilight.  The  long  evening  stretched 
in  front  of  her — the  long  evening  which  she  had  never 
learnt  to  use.  Psycho-analysis,  which  had  made  her 
so  much  better  while  the  course  lasted,  now  that  it  was 
over  (and  it  was  too  expensive  to  go  on  with  forever) 
had  left  her  worse  than  before.  She  was  like  a  drunkard 
deprived  suddenly  of  stimulants;  she  had  nothing  to 
turn  to,  no  one  now  who  took  an  interest  in  her  soul. 
She  missed  Mr.  Cradock  and  that  bi-weekly  hour;  she 
was  like  a  creeper  wrenched  loose  from  its  support  and 
flung  flat  on  the  ground.  He  had  given  her  mental  ex- 
ercises and  told  her  to  continue  them;  but  she  had 
always  hated  mental  exercises;  you  might  as  well  go 
in  for  the  Pelman  course  and  have  done.  What  one 
needed  was  a  person.  She  was  left  once  more  face  to 
face  with  time,  the  enemy;  time,  which  gave  itself  to 
her  lavishly  with  both  hands  when  she  had  no  use  for 
it.  There  was  nothing  she  wanted  to  do  with  time, 
except  kill  it. 

"What,  dear?"  murmured  Grandmama,  as  she  rattled 


238  DANGEROUS  AGES 

the  blind  tassel  against  the  sill.  "How  about  a  game 
of  piquet?" 

But  Mrs.  Hilary  hated  piquet,  and  all  card  games, 
and  halma,  and  dominoes,  and  everything.  Grand- 
mama  used  to  have  friends  in  to  play  with  her,  or  the 
little  maid.  This  evening  she  rang  for  the  little  maid. 
May,  who  would  rather  have  been  writing  to  her  young 
man,  but  liked  to  oblige  the  nice  old  lady,  of  whom  the 
kitchen  was  fond. 

It  was  all  very  well  for  Grandmama,  Mrs.  Hilary 
thought,  stormily  revolting  against  that  placidity  by 
the  hearth.  All  very  well  for  Grandmama  to  sit  by 
the  fire  contented  with  books  and  papers  and  games 
and  sleep,  unbitten  by  the  murderous  hatred  of  time 
that  consumed  herself.  Everyone  always  thought  that 
about  Grandmama,  that  things  were  all  very  well  for 
her,  and  perhaps  they  were.  For  time  could  do  little 
more  hurt  to  Grandmama.  She  need  not  worry  about 
killing  time;  time  would  kill  her  soon  enough,  if  she 
left  it  alone.  Time,  so  long  to  Mrs.  Hilary,  was  short 
now  to  Grandmama,  and  would  soon  be  gone.  As  to 
May,  the  little  maid,  to  her  time  was  fleeting,  and  flew 
before  her  face,  like  a  bird  she  could  never  catch.  .  .  . 

Grandmama  and  May  were  playing  casino.  A  bitter 
game,  for  you  build  and  others  take,  and  your  labour 
is  but  lost  that  builded;  you  sow  and  others  reap.  But 
Grandmama  and  May  were  both  good-tempered  and 
ladylike.    They  played  prettily  together,  age  and  youth. 

Why  did  life  play  one  these  tricks,  Mrs.  Hilary  cried 
within  herself.  What  had  she  done  to  life,  that  it 
should  have  deserted  her  and  left  her  stranded  on 
the  shores  of  a  watering-place,  empty-handed  and  piti- 
ful, alone  with  time  the  enemy,  and  with  Grandmama, 
for  whom  it  was  all  very  well? 


TIME  239 


In  the  Crescent  music  blared  out — once  more  the 
Army,  calling  for  strayed  sheep  in  the  rain. 

"Glory  for  you,  glory  for  me ! "  it  shouted.  And  then, 
presently: 

"Count — ^your — blessings!     Count  them  one  by  onel 
And  it  will  surprise  you  what  the  Lord  has  done!" 

Grandmama,  as  usual,  was  beating  time  with  her 
hand  on  the  arm  of  her  chair. 

"Detestable  creatures,"  said  Mrs.  Hilary,  with 
acrimony,  as  usual. 

"But  a  very  racy  tune,  my  dear,"  said  Grandmama, 
placidly,  as  usual. 

"Blood!  Blood! "  sang  the  Army,  exultantly,  as  usual. 

May  looked  happy,  and  her  attention  strayed  from 
the  game.  The  Army  was  one  of  the  joys,  one  of  the 
comic  turns,  of  this  watering-place. 

"Six  and  two  are  eight,"  said  Grandmama,  and 
picked  them  up,  recalling  May's  attention.  But  she 
herself  still  beat  time  to  the  merry  music-hall  tune  and 
the  ogreish  words. 

Grandmama  could  afford  to  be  tolerant,  as  she  sat 
there,  looking  over  the  edge  into  eternity,  with  Time, 
his  fangs  drawn,  stretched  sleepily  behind  her  back. 
Time,  who  flew,  bird-like,  before  May's  pursuing  feet; 
time,  who  stared  balefully  into  Mrs.  Hilary's  face,  re- 
turning hate  for  hate,  rested  behind  Grandmama's  back 
like  a  faithful  steed  who  had  carried  her  thus  far  and 
whose  service  was  nearly  over. 

The  Army  moved  on;  its  music  blared  away  into  the 


240  DANGEROUS  AGES 

distance.  The  rain  beat  steadily  on  wet  asphalt  roads; 
the  edge  of  the  cold  sea  tumbled  and  moaned;  the  noise 
of  the  fire  flickering  was  like  unsteady  breathing,  or 
the  soft  fluttering  of  wings. 

"Time  is  so  long,"  thought  Mrs.  Hilary.  "I  can't 
bear  it." 

"Time  gets  on  that  quick,"  thought  May.  "I  can't 
keep  up  with  it." 

"Time  is  dead,"  thought  Grandmama.  "What  next?" 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  KEY 

Not  Grandmama's  and  not  Neville's  should  be,  after 
all,  the  last  word,  but  Pamela's.  Pamela,  who  seemed 
lightly,  and  as  it  were  casually,  to  swing  a  key  to  the 
door  against  which  Neville,  among  many  others,  beat; 
Pamela,  going  about  her  work,  keen,  debonair  and 
detached,  ironic,  cool  and  quiet,  responsive  to  life  and 
yet  a  thought  disdainful  of  it,  lightly  holding  and  easily 
renouncing;  the  world's  lover,  yet  not  its  servant,  her 
foot  at  times  carelessly  on  its  neck  to  prove  her  power 
over  it — Pamela  said  blandly  to  Grandmama,  when  the 
old  lady  commented  one  day  on  her  admirable  com- 
posure, "Life's  so  short,  you  see.  Can  anything  which 
lasts  such  a  little  while  be  worth  making  a  fuss  about?" 

"Ah,"  said  Grandmama,  "that's  been  my  philosophy 
for  ten  years  .  .  .  only  ten  years.  You've  no  business 
with  it  at  your  age,  child." 

"Age,"  returned  Pamela,  negligent  and  cool,  "has 
extremely  little  to  do  with  anything  that  matters.  The 
dif:  "ence  between  one  age  and  another  is,  as  a  rule, 
eno,  lously  exaggerated.  How  many  years  w^e've  lived 
on  this  ridiculous  planet — how  many  more  w^e're  going 
to  live  on  it — what  a  trifle!  Age  is  a  matter  of  ex- 
ceedingly little  importance." 

"And  so,  you  would  imply,  is  everything  else  on  the 
ridiculous  planet,"  said  Grandmama,  shrewdly. 

241 


242  DANGEROUS  AGES 

Pamela  smiled,  neither  affirming  nor  denying. 
Lightly  the  key  seemed  to  swing  from  her  open  hand. 

"I  certainly  don't  see  quite  what  all  the  fuss  is 
about,"  said  Pamela. 


THE  END 


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